


RadioWaves

by SuperSquiddle



Category: Friday Night Funkin' (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, If that's triggering for you I don't recommend reading, M/M, No Smut, Pico has undiagnozed schizophrenia, Polyamory, Romance, Schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperSquiddle/pseuds/SuperSquiddle
Summary: Second year of college is hard, particularly when you’re as easily distracted as Pico. Especially when said distractions come in the form of a gorgeous rich classmate, a spunky street rapper and a radio that talks back just a little too much.
Relationships: Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Pico(Friday Night Funkin')
Comments: 54
Kudos: 125





	1. New Faces

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfic for a while, the brainrot got to me ok. Hope you guys enjoy this'll be a semi-long one.

Gentle blackness, serene darkness, a dreamless sleep. Cut through by a jarring sound loud enough to wrench Pico from the nothingness that was sleep. It startled him for a moment before he saw his phone and the subsequent alarm, it was 7am. God he craved a time where he could sleep in for three more hours every day, but college was just like that. His radio said that the weather would be mild today, teetering on cold. He sleepily glanced at it and rubbed his eyes, hearing a staticky voice state, “what are you waiting for? Something to happen?” 

Pico throws on the shirt hanging over his desk chair before heading to the showers to get ready, it was way too early for this shit. Three weeks into the new semester and he still wasn’t used to it. 8:30am classes were bullshit, and he would always stand by this statement. Anyone who set a class that early was the devil incarnate. Also, it wasn’t like he could just walk out of his room and find a bathroom, no, these were the kinds of dorms that sucked. Just a singular bed, desk and lounge all in the same space. It was serviceable, but having to walk two minutes at 2am in the cold to the communal bathroom just to take a piss was beginning to get on his already short nerves. 

Getting clean and properly dressed took about ten minutes. He splashed water on his face to wake himself up a little and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Wet, curly red hair that he’d soon style back with gel, eyes so light blue they bordered on white, and freckles that danced along his pale skin. A bland, everyday sight for him, nothing particularly special. The tiles behind him shifted in the mirror a little, he glanced at them, but they didn’t move again. 

Pico headed back to his room to grab his things, when he opened the door it dawned on him a little bit just how messy his room had become in the three weeks he’d been there. There were his posters, figurines, games and CDs, but none of that was the problem. The small pile of pizza boxes, the ever growing collection of cans and bottles in the corner and the clothes strewn about didn’t exactly help his self confidence. At least he had no friends to come around and see this place. 

He picked up a few of the clothes strewn about, balled them up and threw them in a hamper. His radio cheered as if he just scored, prompting him to grab another shirt and throw it over the radio to shut it up a little. Pico didn’t feel like taking the 5 minute walk to the cafeteria for food, so he just grabbed some milk from the minifridge and made himself some cereal. The irritating audio device one again commented, albeit in a more muffled voice, “cinnamon toast crunch is full of sugar, what would your mother think of you?”

Pico ignored it, finished eating and gathered up his bag, laptop, books and headphones. “Why couldn’t you have been a doctor, like your parents wanted?” _Oh my god shut the fuck up already._ “You’re a failure, you always will be.” At this point he unplugged it, put his headphones on and turned the music right up. He hoped this would drown out even more unwanted comments. He was just about to walk out the door when he realised, he had forgotten something important. Pico pulled out his key, unlocked his desk drawer to see a small glock resting beside a taken apart uzi, he placed the glock inside the pocket of his baggy brown pants. “Can never be too careful…” Pico mumbled to himself. He was at least glad the gun fit snugly in his pocket, completely concealed, if the college were to find out he had guns on campus, well, things wouldn’t go so well. 

The young man exited his room, heading to his first class, one of the compulsory ones he wasn’t interested in at all, figuring he could just listen to music and cram for it later. He sat there, spaced out, doodling in his notebook and attempting to scribble a few music notes down for a track he was working on. Two hours of zoning in and out of reality dragged to a crawl by the end of the lesson. But at least it was now time for the class he was actually interested in. Sonic music production.

This is what he was here for; sound design, event management, digital music production, ect ect. Just a shame he’d mostly have to wait until third year to really get into the meat of things. For now it was just boring shit with the occasional slice of something he was interested in. The prospect of working in the music industry was being dangled in front of him like a carrot on a string, just something to work towards he supposed. 

Pico sat down and took out his laptop, taking out his headphones. The professor was talking about a project they were going to be working on, worth 70% of their grade. _Piece of cake_. The professor then said they’d be working with a partner for it. _Oh no. Fuck._ Pico’s eyes scanned over the class of mostly nobodies, trying to pick out someone who wouldn’t drag him down. He didn’t know anyone here after all. The professor then stated that he’d be assigning them partners at random. _Fuuuuuck no_. This was a disaster. Pico tried to maintain a neutral expression as his eyelid involuntarily twitched. _If this rando gets me a failing grade imma kill them._

The professor clicked on their laptop, activating a selection program on his laptop that paired them all up. Pico noted the name that appeared on his own screen: Lilly. Who’s Lilly??? He glanced around the room for anyone that looked even remotely like a Lilly, and soon caught eyes with three girls in the front row. He could swear they were staring at him. They all looked away when he began to stare back, and whispered to each other. Great, so someone recognized him. At least he didn’t have to go hunting for this girl. One of the trio pointed at him, and the girl in the middle stood up, gathered her things and walked on over to him. 

Pico stood up as she headed over and shoved his hands in his pockets. She was only slightly shorter than him. Lilly smiled at him. He took note of her summery, floral red dress, it was pretty he guessed? Wait a second isn’t this that really rich girl? That’s just fantastic. He prayed she wasn’t a snob. 

Lilly tilted her head when he didn’t smile back and held out a hand for him to shake. “I’m Lilly, your new partner.”  
  
“Uh, Pico,” he shook her hand and sat back down.

She sat beside him, glancing down at his drawn-all-over notebook. “Good to see you’ve been paying attention.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Was that sarcastic?”

Once again, she smiled at him. “Maybe? Who knows.”

Pico could not tell for the life of him whether she was being genuine or not. 

“So, what can you do? Music-wise?”

  
“Oh, uh, I play keyboard, I make music digitally, and I rap.”

She giggled a little. “You don’t look like you rap.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He was almost offended. 

Lilly shrugged. “I dunno, you give off a ‘secretly into punk rock’ vibe.”

Now he was actually offended. “I’ve never been more insulted in my life.”

She gently nudged his shoulder. “Lighten up a little, I’m just playing. Got any examples of what you can do?”

“Uh, yeah.” He handed her a headphone and booted up a few beats he had made. She instinctively bobbed her head to the music. 

“Ok ok… I can work with this.”

“Well, your turn, what can you do?”

“Oh, all sorts, my parents are sorta famous.”

Pico did a double take, he figured rich, but famous? “Really now?”

She grinned. “Yeah we have this big recording studio at home! If you’re lucky you might get to see it sometime.” 

  
Ok now he had even less of a clue whether she was teasing him or just being nice. 

The two of them spent the rest of the class listening to Lilly’s tracks and discussing the techniques they’d need to show off in their project. A few minutes before their time runs out Lilly asked, “so, how do I contact you? What messenger app do you use? Any social media I can follow you on?”  
  
He shrugged. “Not really, I don’t have any accounts.”

She looked a little shocked. “In this day and age?”

Pico looked away a little. “I mean I have discord but-”

“Oh that works.”

He met her eyes again. “Wait, _you_ have discord?”

“It’s a good place to get to know people with shared interests!”

“I mostly use it for memes.” They added each other on the app.

Lilly stood up, picked up her bag and tilted her head. “You look tired. Early morning?”

He rubbed one of his eyes and stated bluntly, “no offense but I feel like I just got out of an hour long job interview.”

She smirked. “You pretty much did. I could easily sway the professor to put me with someone else, but you’re alright. I’m gonna stay with you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Pico backtracked a little. “I’m not judging your choice, I don’t think i’m a bad choice either, I’m just curious. If you could have anyone, why pick me?”

Lilly crossed her arms and tapped her foot in thought. “Well… Despite how distracted you can get, you seem to really care about this. All those programs on your computer, the amount of samples you showed me, the sheer amount of files in that original music folder you showed me. You’re not just here because you thought it’d be easy, or fun all the time, you seem to have passion. And I like that. Well, I gotta go to my next class. I’ll see you later Pico.” She gave him a kind smile and walked away before he could say anything.

He stood there for a little while, a bit dumbstruck at one of the nicest compliments he was ever given, especially from someone he had just met. Passion. Was that a good word to describe him? Pico mulled over this as he headed to his next class.

As he was walking he almost passed by a small crowd at a familiar spot in the courtyard, a small smile crossed his face, and he guessed it was that time again. Figuring he could join the crowd for a few minutes, he stayed to watch the show. 

A short, young man with lightning blue hair was calling on challengers to rap battle him. His confidence was legendary, usually people wouldn’t have the balls to do this kinda thing, but Pico knows this guy is good, he’s never seen him lose. This blue haired guy was in his music classes last year, but hadn’t turned up at all this year, instead choosing to busk on campus. Singing and rapping buskers were usually annoying but this guy could put his money where his mouth is. Seems like he had made about $100 this morning, and was gambling it, saying anyone who could beat him in a contest gets the money instead of him. 

$100 was good, but was it worth his pride if he lost? Pico considered. But just as he was about to step forward an angry looking middle aged man pushed through the crowd, storming right up to the blue haired young man. Pico stopped in his tracks, confused, who the fuck was this guy? 

The older man handed the busker a CD and growled, “you, me, a sing off, right now. No money on the line, but something else.” The young man’s snarky smile dropped from his face for a split second, just long enough for Pico to notice before it returned in full. He put in the CD, and the two began to sing. The older man starts off easy, almost like he’s just humoring the busker. _He shouldn’t underestimate him like that._ But eventually gets more and more showy. The busker harmonizes with him on the fly, making up lyrics that fit and rhyme perfectly. Some members of the crowd are filming them, Pico doesn’t understand why.

After the third song, the busker calls out to the crowd, “enjoying the show?!”

People start clapping.

“Y’all know how this goes, it’s time for you to decide the winner! I wanna hear cheers for who you think won, ok?!” He pointed to the older man. The crowd cheers, and the challenger gives a smug smirk.

  
Pico thinks this might be bad.

The young man pointed to himself with his thumbs. The crowd goes absolutely wild. Even Pico is clapping for him. 

If looks could kill that busker would have a knife through the chest. The challenger handed him the mic and stormed off, red in the face. The blue haired young man held out his cap to the crowd. “If anyone can spare a few dollars for a good show it’d be much appreciated!”

Eh, what’s the harm? Pico waited for most of the crowd to disperse before handing him a few spare notes. Surprisingly, the busker’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh hey it’s you! How’ve you been?”

Pico looked down at him questioningly, “I’m pretty sure we don’t know each other.”

He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and grinned at Pico. “Yeah but you were in my class last year!” he clarified, “and you hang around my shows sometimes, you stick out dude, why wouldn’t I remember you?”

_I stick out??? Says you._ “I guess? Will you be back anytime soon? I haven’t seen you in class once.”

He waved a hand. “Nah, I dropped that shit.”

“Oh.”

The busker gestured to his stuff. “This is my gig now! They even buy my CDs sometimes!”

“Uh, cool.”

“You know what? You and me? We should hang out sometime, how about it?” He nudges Pico’s side with his fist.

“I guess?”

“What’s your name?”  
  
“Pico.”

“Keith! Got a soundcloud? Twitter? Snapchat?”

“Discord.”

“Oh well that works! Here,” Keith took out his phone, “don’t just add me as a contact, friend me. You’re a bit quiet but you seem cool!”

“Uh, thanks?” Pico was feeling a little awkward, but couldn’t turn him down, not while he was this excited. In fact, he didn’t want to turn him down. A friend would be nice, especially someone who also likes rapping. “You’re cool too.”

Keith ate up the compliment and gave him two thumbs up.

“I kinda gotta get going, late to class.”

“Dude don’t let me keep you! You know where I’ll be! We’ll organize something!”

“Aight. Seeya ‘round.” Pico nodded and walked away.

…

It was the end of the day, Pico slumped into his room, exhausted. He decided against trying to study with his static filled brain and instead sat at his desk to game. Pulling out his gun and locking it inside the drawer for the night. He set up his laptop, plugged his controller and headphones in, and lost himself in the world of COD zombies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that wasn't boring, just trying to set things up for the future chapters, world/character establishment and all that. Feel free to hit me up on my tumblr if you wanna ask questions or talk to me about this fic! (or fnf in general lol)


	2. Lo-Fi Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of traction this is getting got me excited so I'm posting another chapter today. I hope you guys enjoy!

Pico stared down at the field recorder he was holding, he fiddled with it for a while, trying to get down how to make the damn thing work properly. He had never owned one; he mostly generated samples for his songs using the mic he had hooked up to his computer. The young man didn’t even want to think about how he must’ve looked; banging shit together, saying random voice lines, fucking up playing the keyboard time after time. Man was he glad he kept his webcam covered. He hoped this thing would be better, and that he wouldn’t misplace it, that’d put him $200 in the hole. He knew his parents probably wouldn’t fork up to replace it. 

He was supposed to be meeting up with Lilly today to record samples for the project’s songs. He had been meeting up with her about three times a week for nearly two weeks just to work on it, and had learned a bit about her. Mostly that she wouldn’t be caught dead without a cherry Dr Pepper, she always had one in her bag somewhere. She was an excellent producer, which made Pico a little jealous. Then again she’d been around music her entire life, he only learned to play the keyboard in his teens. She also had apparently gotten into that true crime craze and never really left it, not in the weirdo sense, but in the sense that she knows a little too much about serial killers and horror movies. Boy did he have a story for her one day.

Speaking of Lilly, where was she? They agreed to meet up by the front entrance to the college but she was nowhere to be seen. He scanned around for dark red hair before spotting her and two of her friends walking towards her. Pico waved at her, she waved back, her friends shot him a judgemental look and whispered to her with concern.  _ Seriously? _ He rubbed his eye and nose with his middle finger, hoping her friends were dumb enough not to catch on. 

Pico stood tall as she skipped over to him, the two other girls walking past. The young man did a double take, their eyes looked completely black for a second. He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see a happy face. He scoffed a little, “what’s their problem?”

“Oh they’re just being protective. You’re a little too quiet you know?”   
  
“Huh???” _ What the hell does that mean? _

“Yeah since they couldn’t stalk your socials, because you know, you have none, all they see is me catching up with a strange boy. They’re just worried about me, especially since we’re going into the city today.”

“That just makes me not want to get social media even more.”

Lilly laughed a little. “Don’t worry about it, alright?”

He began to walk with her. “I’m not, they’re the worried ones. Why?”   
  
“Oh um, you know.”

“Do they like, think I’m gonna hurt you?”

“Look it’s just a possibility they’re considering-”

“Because I’m not. Gonna hurt you that is. I’m not dangerous.”

She exaggerated a wince. “People don’t usually have to say that.”

“Apparently I have to! Fuck sake…”

“...Don’t take it personally ok? It’s not you.”

Pico sighed a bit. “Ok… I’ll drop it. Sorry.”

She walked in front of him and turned around, clapping her hands together. “Anyway! Lets have some fun! This doesn’t have to be a chore, this’ll be great!”

Her enthusiasm rubbed off on him, and he half smiled. “Yeah, yeah it will be!”

Got your audio recorder working?”

“I think so. You wanted to go to a cafe first right?”

“Yeah! See if we can get permission to go behind the counter.”   
  
“This is for the lo-fi song right?”   
  
“Exactly! Where did you want to go again?”

“The train station, one near the industrial side of town, get some more metallic noises. After that I have a bunch of samples already recorded on my computer.”

“They have to be our own remember?” she clarified.

“I know, I got one on my phone as an example if you wanna hear, so you know the quality isn’t all fucked up.”

“Sure thing!”

  
Pico handed her a headphone and played a soundbite of a gun being cocked and reloaded.   
  


Lilly seemed a bit confused for a moment. “Did you pay for that online? I did just say they have to be our own samples.”   
  
“That is my own sample.”   
  
“Oh… Your family owns guns?”   
  
_ Let's go with that.  _ “Yeah they’re big on protection.”

“Mine are big on trophy hunting, ugh. We flat out have a stuffed bear in the living room.”

“Aren’t those endangered or some shit?”

“Uh, I think it depends on the kind of bear.”

“What kind is it?”   
  
“Um… It’s brown in colour…”

Pico snorted just a little. “That narrows it down so much, thank you.” 

“Shut up!” She elbowed him slightly, he elbowed her back. 

This continued to intensify until Lilly pushed Pico into a wall, he blinked at her, surprised. Lilly had her hands over her mouth in shock and exclaimed, “I am  _ so _ sorry! Are you ok?!”

Pico just laughed and dusted himself off. “Yeah, it’s cool. Man you’re stronger than you look.”

Lilly immediately relaxed and stated, “ok now I owe you a drink when we get to this cafe.”   
  
“Wait no you don’t?”   
  
“I’ve decided to buy you a drink,” she poked him in the chest, “and you don’t get to say no!” He held up his hands in a “the fuck?” gesture before catching up to her. God women can be confusing sometimes, but a free drink’s a free drink. 

Lilly did indeed, buy him a free iced coffee, as well as recorded the sounds of it being made. As well as the general chatter inside the cafe. Pico sipped it as he watched her charm her way into being let behind the counter, his eyes scanned over the other patrons as he leaned against the counter. For a split second, everyone in the cafe turned to stare at him, and everything went silent. He then blinked, and it was like it had never happened. Pico leaned over towards Lilly and asked, “hey did you just see-”

She held up a finger to him, basically a quick ‘not right now.’

He exhaled out his nose and continued sipping his drink. About 15 minutes of scrolling through his phone later Lilly tapped Pico on the shoulder. “We’re done here!”    
  
“Oh, cool. Wait what’s that?”

“Oh I just thought I’d buy a little something for the road, we are gonna be out for a while,” she explained, handing him a brown paper bag.

He looked inside to see a jelly filled donut. “You really didn’t have to…”

“I didn’t! But I did. Deal with it.” She exited the store under the overcast sky, taking a bite out of her own. She flinched as a quiet bout of thunder cracked across the sky.

Pico was too in his own head to notice. What the hell was he gonna do? Not accept a delicious treat that a friend bought him- wait did he just think of her as a friend? He followed her, not saying much as she called an uber to the train station in the outskirts of town. Did she think of him the same way? Or just as a project partner? It would be nice to have a friend, he could totally measure up to those girls she was always trailing around. In fact he could be  _ better  _ than them. Pico quickly scarfed down the donut and iced coffee and chucked the trash away. “Hey lets do something.”   
  
“Huh? Like what? We’re just waiting around. The car’s 2 minutes away.”    
  
“Uh,” icebreaker time, dumbass, “20 questions, well not exactly 20 that’s obnoxious. But lets get to know each other a little?”

“Hmmmmm…” Lilly tapped her lip in thought, “sure! I’ll go first. What do you wanna do exactly after you graduate?”

“Shit that’s a hard one. I just wanna make music somehow…”

“So you need direction, got it! You’ll probably work it out next year, I believe in you!”

He couldn’t help but feel heat rising to his cheeks at the encouragement. “So, you?”  
  
“Oh I’ll just be working at my parent’s record label. I already have a job guaranteed but I wanted to go to college for the experience you know? I’ve always been handed things. I kinda just want to work for something for once yaknow? Just to go, this is really _mine. I did this._ _This is my achievement.”_

The uber pulled up, and the pair got in the back, after greeting the driver they sat in silence for a few minutes before a ringtone cut through the silence. 

Lilly frowned. “God dammit…” she answered the phone. “Yeah dad? No. Yes. I’m with a friend. No not him! I’m working on a project and I’m kinda busy right now. No I don’t have to tell you which friend! Yes it’s a guy!” She looked at Pico and rolled her eyes, mouthing ‘parents.’ “I’ll call you when I get back to my dorm room ok? If i’m not back in five hours  _ then  _ you can be worried alright? Bye dad.” She hung up the phone, shaking her head.

“What is that, the third time I've seen him call you?”

“God he’s so annoying! Like damn dad! I’m 18! I can do what I want!”

Pico’s eyes widened. “You’re 18???”   
  


“Yeah, how old are you?”

“20, how the hell are you in a second year college class???”

“I skipped a few grades in primary school, nothing special.”

Pico would argue otherwise. 

“But yeah, overbearing parents, amirite?”

“Yeah, I can relate. My parents are stupidly protective.” 

“Do you live with them?”

“Nah I live on campus, they’re in another state.”

“Oh same! To the living on campus part, my parents live just outside the city. Also we were doing a thing before he called right?”   
  
“20 questions.”

“Oh yeah! Your turn.”

Pico scratched his head a little and then asked, “if a doppelganger stole your appearance, what would give them away as not being you?”

“Oooo… Shit… Um... “ Lilly put a lot of thought into her answer. “I can play most instruments you throw at me, hand the doppelganger a hurdy gurdy, if they can’t play it it’s not me.”

“What the fuck is a hurdy gurdy?”   
  


“It’s an instrument that sounds like if a violin had a baby with bagpipes.”

“Wh-”

“Your turn!”

“Uh… The doppelganger would get the pattern of my freckles wrong to the point where I look like myself but to the left, that would pin them as not me.”

She pursed her lips. “Hmmmm I disagree.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think they’d get the look in your eyes wrong.”

  
“The… Look in my eyes?”   
  
“You have a particular look to you, it’s like you have a lot to say but you don’t say much. Why is that?”

“I say plenty!”

“No, you _ want to,  _ there’s a difference. I can tell you have an ego, you just don’t want it to get bruised so you don’t put yourself out there much.”

“Alright little miss armchair psychiatrist. I think we’ve done enough psychoanalysis. Your turn, shoot a question at me.”

Lilly bobbed her head from side to side thinking. “If aliens invaded, what would you do?”

“Oh that’s easy, go guns blazing, take as many of them down with me as I can.”

“Ooooo Mr badass over here. What if they’re friendly aliens?”

“If they’re friendly then why the hell are they invading???”

“Damn, that’s a good point!” She chuckled a little and so did Pico. 

Pico then asked, “what does your radio tell you when you wake up?”

“My… Radio?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t have to be when you wake up, but what does it tell you that relates to you?”

“Oh, hmm… Mine sometimes plays songs that line up with what I’m thinking, nice coincidences like that.”

“God that’d be great, mine just says annoying shit.”   
  
“Change the channel if you don’t like it!”

“Yeah but they’re all the same.”

“God you’re weird sometimes.”

“You’re weird!”

She placed a hand on his shoulder, got a serious look on her face and then said in a bastardized Russian accent, “yes comrade,  _ we _ are weird.” 

Pico burst out laughing, and so did Lilly. The uber driver ignored them. 

They spent about thirty minutes recording the sounds of passing trains, chains, metal hitting fences, ect, until they decided they had enough samples to put in their portfolio, and to use for the project. It had also started to rain, they wouldn’t get any good recordings with that level of background noise. 

As their next ride pulled up to the college, Pico noticed Lilly was shaking a little. “Hey, you alright?”

Just then lightning flashed across the horizon, and Lilly hunched over holding her elbows. “I don’t like storms ok?”

“Do you, uh, want me to walk you to your dorm?” It was the least he could do considering she paid for food.

“That would be nice, thank you, just to the building though.”

He nodded, getting out of the car and pulling out an umbrella. She rushed under it, shivering. The two quickly walked over to the dorm rooms, Lilly mumbled, “I’ll see you next time, thank you,” before rushing inside. 

Damn she really doesn’t like storms huh? Pico thought about heading inside himself, but heard a beat just around the corner and remembered something.  _ Fuck I never got back to Keith! _

He quickly jogged over to Keith’s usual spot, seems he had relocated to an undercover spot for the day. There Pico saw him battling against two… Children? They were small, and in halloween costumes. Halloween wasn’t for two weeks though? Keith wasn’t going easy on them either, deservedly so, they were surprisingly  _ good.  _ Seeing him battle made Pico feel guilty as hell for not really messaging him besides sending the occasional meme. The guy really seemed like he wanted to chill too. 

Since it was raining, and a weekend, there wasn’t much of a crowd, so there was no one to judge a winner. Keith shook the kids hands, they then did a silly dance and yelled, “happy spooky month!!!”, running off into the rain. Wait where the hell were their parents??? Pico decided it was none of his business, noticing Keith’s dark brown eyes light up at the sight of him.

“Eyyy!! Pico!! Over here!!” Keith waved him over, standing on his tiptoes to put an arm around his shoulders, yanking the taller man down. “How’ve you been? Good? Chillin?”

“Yeah, just chillin, doing college, that sorta boring shit.”

“We’re still good for that outing right?”   
  
“Uh, yeah of course. Sorry I've been busy lately.” Not really. He had just forgotten. 

“Alright, alright. Hey wanna chat for a few minutes? I’m just packing up.” Keith let go of him and began to put away his equipment. 

“Yeah, sounds good.” 

“Hey do you know any good halloween costumes? Like couples costumes?”   
  
“Why? You going to a party with someone?”

“Yeah my girlfriend and I are doing a thing together and I didn’t want to pick a basic bitch costume, like devils or something.”

“Fuck that’s hard… You a fan of any video games or horror movies?”

“Girlfriend’s really into horror movies, she wanted to go as Ridley and the alien, you know, from Alien? Except she’s the alien and I’m Ridley.”

Pico couldn’t hide his amusement. “Is that a problem?”

“Yeah! I’d have to picture her with that double jaw bullshit and that’s a massive turnoff dude.”

_ That’s _ your reasoning??? Bro. “So, you’ve gotta find a happy medium, am I hearing you right?”

“Yeah! She suggested the Thing next, what the hell that’s  _ worse! _ ” 

  
Pico laughed but Keith seemed almost genuinely bothered by this. “I dunno, go full American Werewolf in London or something.”

“Yeah but, I’m not a furry.”

Pico wheezed. “Who the fuck thinks werewolves are furries?”

Keith stared into his eyes. “You’d be shocked. I’ve _ seen _ some shit dude.” 

He put his hands up defensively. “Look man I don’t wanna know what corners of the internet you’ve been on.” 

Keith then reiterated, “yeah but, you got any other ideas?”

“Uh… Those kids seemed to have a thing going. Classic halloween? Frankenstein and his bride?”

Keith’s eyes widened. “Shit that might actually work… Dude you’re a genius!”

Pico smirked. “The sheer scope of my intelligence, the magnitude of my brain, is unfathomable.”

“Damn those are some big words.”

“Wh- You’re a rapper! Don’t tell me you don’t know those words?!”

“I’m poking fun! Not everything I say is literal dude.”

  
“Oh.”

“Yeah. Speaking of rapping…” Keith pulled out a mic and offered it to Pico. “When are you gonna challenge me?”

Pico grinned. “What do you think you’ll beat me?”

“Have you ever seen me lose?”

“I call bullshit, you gotta have some weakness.”

“Nah, there’s no way.”

“What if I had you at gunpoint and told you to forfeit?”

Keith puffed out his chest at him. “I’d say I’d rather die than go out like a pussy.”

Pico waved him off. “You’re all talk…”

“Ok then, we’ll settle this! Come on, battle me!”

He held up a finger. “Ah, on my terms, to my beats, later. I don’t feel like it right now.”

“Well you know where I am!” Keith slung his backpack over his shoulder and picked up his boombox.

Just then, a goth student walked up to Keith and nervously said, “hey… I’ve seen your shows, you’re pretty cool… Here.” She handed him ten dollars. 

Keith nodded to her with a smile. “Thank you! I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow.”

Pico just stared at her, wide eyed, hand hovering over his pocket. 

She gave a small wave and then quickly ran off. Did she have a knife? A gun? Was she going to hurt him? _ Was she going to hurt Keith? _

Pico jumped little when a hand waved in front of his eyes. Keith gazed up at him. “Yoohoo, earth to Pico? You in there?”

“A- I- I- Uh…”

“You ok man?” Keith was concerned now.

“I gotta go.”

“Oh, uh, sure? I’ll hit you up for that hang out sesh ok?”

“Yeah…” Pico was too out of it to register what Keith just said, and simply walked in a daze back to his dorm. Picking at his fingernails as he went. 


	3. Train Tracks

Today was the day. He was finally going to challenge Keith. Pico had spent a few hours touching up his three favourite tracks instead of paying attention to his history class. He ran through improvised lyrics in his head on the fly, and did his best to ignore his laptop’s occasional interjection, “he’ll kick your ass Pico. Why do you even think you can do this? You’re a D grade rapper at best. Go curl up in your room and die. It’s all you're good for.”

Pico stared at it and whispered, “and I thought the radio was bad…”

“Take that pistol in your pocket, put it to your skull, and paint the room red with your grey matter.” 

“Fuck. Off.” He closed the laptop a little hard once the tracks finished downloading onto his phone, prompting some other students to shoot him weird looks. The young man was at least glad he had his headphones in, otherwise the others would hear his computer’s suicide baiting. The least he could do was not make things awkward for them. He packed his things away and left the class about ten minutes early, wondering if other people’s devices were as nasty as his could be. 

  
Pico had about 30 minutes until his last class, it was nearly 4pm, Keith would leave his spot soon, it was now or never. He zipped up his green jacket when he stepped outside, winter was approaching fast and it was getting cold.

As expected, Keith was at the usual spot, rounding up a crowd to try and get challengers. “Alright we’ve had two so far! And I remain undefeated! Is there gonna be a lucky number three? Y’all get to decide! Step up to the challenge if you’re feeling brave!”

“I’m feeling more than brave, you’re the one who’s gonna need luck Keith!” 

Keith’s entire face lit up at the sight of Pico, he was ecstatic. “EYYY!!! We have a challenger folks! You got a beat for me? Or do I gotta provide?”

“I’ll do you one better, I have three.” Pico hooked up his phone to Keith’s boombox, and selected a track simply titled Pico.

Keith handed him a mic, the battle had begun. The crowd might as well have faded away, to Pico it seemed like just the two of them. The duet left him feeling invigorated. Keith’s voice complimented his own beautifully, and the crowd clapping along to Philly Nice made him feel like a star. Finally, Blammed. No more fun and games. This was more of an actual battle than a show for onlookers to enjoy, anything they knew about each other, any little flaw, was a weapon. And Pico hadn’t a clue who had won.

Keith spent about five seconds catching his breath after the song was over. He then rushed over to Pico and yelled to the onlookers, “you know what time it is! Time for you to decide the winner!!” He grabbed Pico’s wrist and yanked it as far up as he could.

There was clapping and cheering, Pico thought he might actually have a shot at this. 

But then, Keith raised his hands, and the crowd went wild. Pico’s jaw dropped. _Really?! He gave that his all!_ Something Lilly had said to him echoed through his mind. She was right about his ego alright, and man was it bruised. He handed Keith back his mic, shoved his hands in his pockets and began to leave. Keith grabbed the back of his jacket. “Ah! Where do you think you’re going?!”

Pico looked back to see Keith holding him there with one hand, and collecting money in his cap with the other. The young man closed his eyes, let out a long breath through his nose, and decided to stay put. He was the one who challenged Keith, losing was a possibility. Though it was possible the crowd was just biased? Yeah, let's go with that. 

Pico leaned against the wall, waiting around while people came up to talk to Keith, a few even came up to say Pico was cool. Damn, at least he got some credit for that. As he waited the redhead’s eye caught sight of four alt kids passing by, his fingers slowly slid from his jacket to his right hand pocket. 

Keith’s voice cut through the haze as he flat out demanded, “alright you need to drop any late classes you had today and come with me.”

Pico relaxed his hand. “Whyyyyy would I do that???”

“We haven’t hung out yet!!! That’s a crime.”

Pico sneered a little. “What are you a cop?”

“If I gotta handcuff our wrists together to get you to chill with me I will. Tonight is a Keith and Pico night.” Keith finger gunned at Pico before beginning to pack away his things.

Pico put a hand on his face and shook his head. “Why am I just going along with whatever people tell me to do?”

Keith shrugged, standing up straight. “That’s your problem dude, make up your own mind then! Do you wanna go sit in your boring ass math classes to do calculus or whatever or do you wanna chill at the trainyard with me? I know you don’t have shit to do tomorrow, it’s Friday!”

That was super tempting. He only had one class left, it was indeed math, and he was in no mood to learn more. He could bludge one class, right? No harm done, he’d just catch up tomorrow. “Ok! You’ve convinced me! Keith and Pico night.” 

“ _Yeeeessssssss!_ ” The two headed over to the dorms. “I just gotta put some stuff away in my room but then I’ll be back. Don’t move!”

Pico raised an eyebrow. “Wait how do you have a room? You’re not a student anymore right?”

“Crashing on girlfriend’s couch!” He said that as if he was proud of it. 

Keith went inside, leaving Pico to his own agenda. And he decided that agenda would be to be a dick. He hid behind a pillar and waited.

Keith exited the building with a backpack and a skateboard, and did a 360 looking for Pico. “Dude what the fuck did he ditch me?!”

Pico then rounded the pillar, snuck up behind Keith and put his hands on his shoulders. Keith jumped and turned around as fast as lightning. Pico laughed, “the look on your face!!!”

After taking a brief moment to register what the fuck just happened, Keith couldn’t resist grinning. He patted Pico on the back. “Yeah yeah you got me. Don’t play with my heart like that dude.”

“I’ll try not to. Also, uh,” he pointed at Keith as they walked, “I don’t have a skateboard.” The graffiti pattern on the underside was shifting and swirling as if it was underwater. 

“Doesn’t matter, I won’t go too far ahead!” he assured, “we’re walking by the way, unless you’ve got a ride?”

“Nope.” Pico could drive, doesn’t mean he could afford a car on his parent’s allowance. 

Keith pumped his fist in the air. “Wooo!! Night out!!”

Pico glanced at the skateboard again, a little transfixed on the swirling artwork. “So uh, hey how’d you get that pattern there? On the board?”

Keith held it out in front of him and gazed at it. “Oh my parents got it for me a few years back, birthday gift. It came with the board.”

“Yeah but, how’s the pattern like that?”

“I guess an artist painted it on? It’s not that complicated man.”

Pico shrugged. He didn’t realize that technology had progressed far enough for moving paintings. 

Keith suddenly exclaimed, “oh dude! I gotta say! You are so cool! Those bars! Holy shit!” 

Pico’s bruised ego inflated just a little and he smirked. “Yeah it was pretty good huh?”

“Yeah you nearly won! That was so sweet!”

He decided to give Keith a little credit, just to be nice. “Yeah but your flow was better. I think that tipped the scale.”

“I’m just happy I got to keep the money I made.” Keith got on his skateboard and rode just a little in front of Pico.

“I wouldn’t have taken it, isn’t that like, taking food out of your mouth?”

“Oh speaking of food do you wanna get Wendy’s on the way there? There’s one on the way and I haven’t eaten lunch.”

“You’re not gonna pass out on me are you?”

“Nah, I was just on a roll today! I made $250!”

Pico’s eyes went wide. “God damn, I didn’t know you could make that much off of busking.”

“Eh some days are _way_ better than others. I shift around times and acts so people don’t get bored. Sometimes I rap, sometimes I sing covers or original songs. I think people like the battles the most.”

“I mean, those are what I came to watch,” he confirmed.

“Yeah… That’s how I met my girlfriend too!” 

“Really now?”

“Yeah! She knows we’re going out by the way, don’t worry about what she thinks or anything. I told her when I grabbed my stuff and she was all “have fun!”” he imitated her voice sweetly.

“Huh, cool to know she’s not controlling or anything.”

“Yeah we’ve got some nice trust going on.” Keith smiled lovingly to himself. “She’s really sweet…”

Pico put a hand on his shoulder and lightly pushed him off the board. “Look at you, Mr Hearthrob over here!”

“Me?” Keith was a bit shocked, and needed to clarify, “no no! _She’s_ the hearthrob! She’s so nice and she’s hot as hell and… She could have anyone, and I mean _anyone_ … And she picks me… Makes a guy feel special you know?” He jumped back on the board.

“I guess it would.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” he asked.

Pico shook his head. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

Keith started counting on his fingers. “One, you’re handsome, two, you’re chilled out as fuck, three, you’ve got talent. We don’t know each other real well but I can already tell you’re cool. Why wouldn’t you?”

Pico looked away to hide the heat rising to his cheeks, he shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets and shrugged. “I dunno, I’ve never had a girlfriend. Never even kissed someone.”

Keith’s jaw dropped in shock. “Daaaaaaaamn! How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“FUCK! I’ve gotta get you laid dude!”

“That’s a leap.”

“So you never experienced the highs and lows of high school romance?”

“Nope. I was homeschooled throughout high school,” Pico explained.

“Shiiiiiit.”

He scoffed a little, “why do you think I’ve got no friends?”

“That’s a lie, you’ve got me!” Keith held out his fist to him.

Pico blinked a little as he registered what Keith just told him, he then smirked and gave him a fist bump. To be honest he was a little touched. 

“So why were you homeschooled?”

“Uh, an incident happened in elementary school and my parents pulled me out.”

“Damn, what happened?”

The happy look in Pico’s eyes instantly faded, Keith tilted his head a little. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  
Keith put his hands up nonchalantly. “Oh hey there’s no pressure… As for me I had a bunch of partners in high school. None stuck around for more than three weeks.”

“That sucks.”

“I’m coming up on six months with my girlfriend though!!”

“Hell yeah,” he stated.

“We’d known each other for like a year before that too…” Keith noticed that Pico didn’t look too happy. “What’s with the long face?”

Pico exhaled. “I dunno… I kinda feel like I missed out? Like I’m sorta inadequate as an adult.”

“It happens dude, you’ve got your whole life! You’re only twenty! That’s so young and that’s still older than me!”

“How old are you?” he asked curiously.

“Nineteen.”

“And you’ve had how many partners?”

“Around fifteen, only one serious though.”

“Jesus christ, overkill man.”

“You can’t blame me. You gotta learn what you like in a person, sometimes that means trial and error!”

“I guess so… How’d you go for friends?”

Keith’s excited disposition died down a bit. “Eh… I was a floater. Class clown. Jokester. Tried to make people happy.”

Pico nodded. “Every day’s a show huh?”

“Exactly. What about you?”

“I just told you, you’re my one friend.”

“I meant before this big mysterious incident.”

“Oh, I had lots of friends. It was… Nice…” Pico tried not to think about how many of those kids he knew were six feet under. “Alright, question. Why are you latching on to me? I’m sure a lot of the music students would have you, or hell the skaters too.” He gestured to the board.

“Because you don’t seem to care about anything like popularity!”

Pico was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Image man. Everything these days is all about image. How many likes you can get, how good you look to the public, how many people you can entertain with your life. Just by talking to you I can get a sense that you don’t care about any of that. You’re true to yourself!”

The young man rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you just saying that to make me happy or do you really mean it?”

“No man I mean it!” he reassured, “You’re a breath of fresh air to me! Also your songs slap, those ones we rapped together, like damn!”

Pico couldn’t help but smile and hooked an arm around Keith’s neck. “Welp, fuck you, you’re stuck with me now.”

Keith didn’t move his arm away. “Metaphorically handcuffed at the wrist. Get used to me Pico, I’m stickin’ around.” 

Soon the pair were sitting in the gutter outside a Wendy’s, chatting over a few burgers. Pico found some things out about Keith he thought were interesting. The young man started singing at a young age in the school choir, rapping had come later. He loved anything to do with superheroes and comics, but thought the multiple universes we’re the most confusing thing in the world. And he was a very talented street artist, who mostly worked with spray paint. Which gave Pico a good idea about why they were going to go to the train yard at night. 

Soon the two of them were huddled in front of a hole in the tall fence. “Yeah I cut this about a year ago, I’m surprised no one has bothered to fix it.”

Pico nervously looked from side to side. “Are you sure no trains pass through here?”

“I haven’t seen some of these move the whole time I’ve been coming out here. Trains are loud as hell anyway we’ll know if one’s coming. They’ll be slow too, nothing goes fast in a rail yard.”

Keith crawled through the hole, Pico decided to trust him and followed, dusting himself off when he stood. Keith was already halfway across the tracks to a stationary train car, Pico rushed to catch up with him. 

Surprisingly this train car was un-graffitied. “Pick a colour,” said Keith, holding his now open bag out to Pico, it was full of spray paint cans. 

“That green.” He pointed to a light, saturated green. 

“Take it.”

Pico took the can.

“You ever done this before?”  
  


“Nope.”

“Welp I’m gonna be doing my own thing. Hey, idea, how about I paint your name? Immortalize you on the side of a train?”

Pico narrowed his eyes at him. “So a cop can look up my name in a database or something? No way. How many people do you know named Pico?”

“Ah true. Nickname?”

“The only nickname I’ve got is an insult.”

“What is it?”

“Pricko.”

“Ha! That’s so fucking stupid. It’s going on the train.”

Pico rolled his eyes. “Fine. Do what you want.”

The pair spent about fifteen minutes spray painting the side of that train car. Pico had no clue what to paint, so he sprayed the S onto it, you know the one. He topped it off with some explosions, and for a moment considered painting a dick, but decided he was a little better than that and went with a middle finger instead. 

Keith’s voice cut through the silence. “Dude check this out.” He stood back, shining a flashlight on the artwork, the word ‘Pricko’ was there in bright, bold purples, oranges and pinks. 

Pico wondered how the paint glowed that brightly, this brought a big smile to his face as he high fived Keith. Keith passed the flashlight to Pico before taking a photo of their work. He then took it back and turned it off quickly, leading Pico to a rusty storage container. The two sat down against it, Keith pulled out a couple sodas, handing Pico one. 

Pico shuffled on the spot for a little while, finding that he was pretty uncomfortable. He took his gun from his pocket and put it beside himself, now he could face Keith comfortably.

  
Speaking of Keith, his eyes widened. “Woah is that a gun?!”

“Yeah, what about it?” Pico said calmly.

“...Can I see it?”

Pico held it up but didn’t let him touch it.

“What kind is it?”

“A glock G19x.”

“Woah… So it’s real? Damn why do you have that?”

Pico put it back down. “Can never be too careful. If it makes you uncomfortable, too bad, it’s here.”

“Nah dude it doesn’t. I just didn’t expect that from you.”

“Get used to it. Just don’t tell people I have it alright? College would kill me.”

“Don’t tell them I live there and we’re square. Anyway,” Keith rested an elbow on his knee and sipped at his soda, “thanks for doing this with me dude. I appreciate it.”

“It’s no trouble. I’m bored a lot anyway.”

“It gets lonely doing this by myself.” 

Pico tilted his head. “Doesn’t your girlfriend come with you?”

Keith moved his hand in a ‘kinda’ gesture. “She does sometimes but… Well… Can I bitch about something?”

“Go ahead.”

Keith then gripped his cap and pulled it down tightly. “I _hate_ her fuckin’ parents!!! They’re the most overbearing pieces of shit I have _ever_ met! They smother her!”

Pico was a little surprised. “Damn, that’s no good.”

“They’re _evil_ , I swear!”

“Uh, you sure about that?”

  
“Her dad’s threatened my life before and coming from that guy he wasn’t kidding around!”

Pico’s eyes were wide. “Oh…”

Keith put on a scary voice. “”I’ll make sure you have no future, whether that means you’re alive to see it or not.” What the fuck who says that to someone?!” 

“Jesus fucking christ… Why do they hate you so much?”

Keith’s lip curled in anger. “Cuz I’m not the ideal prissy ass rich boy they wanted her to get with. Like, I get it, I’m a dropout, I have no real job, I’m pretty much homeless, but that doesn’t make me worthless you know?!” Now he appeared quite upset.

Pico ran a hand through his hair, thought a little and then asked, “would they have this problem with you if you didn’t drop out…?"

  
“Probably…? I dunno…”   


  
“Why did you drop out in the first place?”

Keith grumbled, “I suck at math ok…? Music and English I was fine in, but shit like math and history and social science and all that junk? It doesn’t stick. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the smartest guy, so I flunked out… Parents were no help either. “Oh you’re just not trying hard enough!” Then they said they wouldn’t support me if I left, so they ditched me when I quit college and I got shunted with a year’s worth of debt.” 

Pico found himself feeling really bad for the guy. “That’s… Cruel man…”

Keith’s head snapped to look at him. “ _Thank you!_ I thought I was just being an idiot about the whole thing… I’m so lucky to have my girl man… I’d be fucked without her and just… I want to give her the world you know?”

  
Pico nodded. 

“I feel bad for how much she does for me. I try to pay her back by, like, cleaning up the room and trying to be a cool dude and giving her space when she needs it. Shit like that. I want to show her how much I love her so badly but, ARGH! So there’s this really annoying thing her dad does right? Where she has to text him every 30 minutes between six and eleven at night, otherwise he sends someone over to the dorm to check on her.”

“Wh- Why? That’s just invasive.”

“So we don’t sleep together.”

Pico facepalmed. “Are you for real?”

Keith ran both hands down his face. “Yes! It’s bullshit! On top of everything her dad’s giving me blue balls dude! It’s ridiculous! And what makes it worse is she’s so _hot_ too! Like her hair and her thighs and her cute as hell face!” He kicked his feet in frustration, but then calmed down. “I just, I really like this girl… Like, I love her…”

“Maybe you should tell her that.”

“Yeah?”

  
“She might appreciate it. Get her flowers or something too.”

“That’s good advice.”

  
“That’s basic bitch advice. Have you never done that before?”

“I write her songs usually.”

Pico smirked. “Awww you write her love poems.”

“Don’t call them poems!”

“That’s exactly what they are.”

“Fuuuuuck!”

“You’re a sap. A really thirsty sap, but a sap.”

Keith stared in disbelief. “How could I not be? She drives me crazy, in a good way. Anyway I’m done bitching… So, how’d your parents feel about you going to college after this big ‘incident’?

Pico leaned his head against the cold metal. “Random question but ok. They didn’t want to cut the cord. Called me daily all throughout the first year, freaked out when I didn’t answer the phone. I threatened to block them if they didn’t stop, they didn’t listen, so I blocked them. I only unblock them when I want to talk to them.”

“You… You don’t gotta tell me what happened by the way.” Keith reassured.

Pico sighed. “I’ll do it one day, just not tonight.”

Keith smiled at him. “This has been so fun, thanks for letting me vent. We should do something on the regular, what do you think?”

“Yeah…” Pico returned the smile. “Yeah why not?”

“What do you do for fun?”

“I play video games a lot. A lotta shooters, like COD, Borderlands, Battlefield.”

  
“I’ve never played any of the Borderlands games.”

Pico let out an exaggerated gasp. “Sacrilege!” 

“Couldn’t afford the latest consoles as a kid. Is it multiplayer?”  
  


“Yep. All throughout the campaign.”

Keith tapped Pico’s arm excitedly. “We should play through it together! Me and you!”

“Oh fuck yeah! You got a computer? Steam account?”

“Uh, I’ll get one.”

“Get it all set up and we’ll play.”

“Also, I wanna talk to you more!”

“Do it then.”

“You have to too! You should get snapchat.”

Pico wasn’t so sure. “Uh…”

“Come ooooon,” begged Keith, “it’ll just be me and you, unless you wanna add celebrities or some crap like that. We can send each other pictures!”

“We already do that through discord.”

“I mean selfies! Not just stupid memes! Come on, pleeeeeease???”

“I- uh- ah- alright fine! God damn… Just don’t make any of my selfies public.” Pico took out his phone and downloaded Snapchat. Keith helped him get the app set up. As he was fiddling with it Pico suddenly found an arm around his shoulders and a face close to his own as Keith snapped a selfie of the two of them.

A notification came up on Pico’s phone from Keith, a photo of an off guard Pico and Keith with his tongue out. It’s captioned “My new pal!!! :P” 

Pico took a second, but then he screenshotted it. He turned a little to look at Keith, who was smiling and typing away on his phone. A feeling welled up in his stomach; seeing the moonlight dance off of Keith’s blue hair, the spark in his eyes, that rambunctious smile. In that moment, Pico never wanted this night to end. He glanced down, noticing how close his hand was resting to Keith’s. He suddenly pulled it away, and quickly looked between it and Keith. God was he glad Keith couldn’t see him blush. Wait. _Oh._ Pico then put a hand on his forehead and gritted his teeth. _Fuuuuuuuuck._

  
Pico had a crush.


	4. Aimbot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a disclaimer, no one's asked about this but I feel the need to mention this anyway. Holy shit do I not share Pico's opinions on guns. No character's opinions are wholly reflective of my own for the most part. Speaking of Pico, only Pico's School and Friday Night Funkin' are canon in this fic. I am not playing a bunch of ancient NGs games for lore. Hope that doesn't bother anyone, please enjoy!

Lilly’s head bobbed side to side to the track she was listening to, their project was almost completed, it was time for the finishing touches. While she was editing the three songs they had to create, Pico was stuck next to her on his own laptop writing the paper to go along with it. They had been at this for about four hours now, and god was he tired. He tried to pay attention, he really did, he had made excellent progress earlier. But hours of staring at a page was starting to get to him. The words were beginning to switch and change to different ones without him touching the keyboard, meaning the sentences he were writing made no sense when he read them back. 

Pico turned to Lilly and said, “hey can you check this over for me please? I’m getting nowhere.”

“Oh, sure!” She took his laptop and took a moment to read everything he had written. “Woooaaah what’s with the last two paragraphs…?”

  
“Yeah that’s my problem.”

  
“Everything else is great but these make _no_ sense…” She pointed to one sentence in the last paragraph. “”This eliminates the various showcases we inserted into our third song track.” What does that mean???”

Pico rubbed his eye a little. “I have no fucking clue, I think I was trying to say something about demonstrating techniques? This just happens when I get tired.”

Lilly saved what she was doing as well as saved their paper. “You know what? I’m tired too, we’ve been at this for ages, let's go do something fun!”

Pico sat up straight. “Yeah?”

She clapped her hands together. “Yeah! Just us two. No brain power needed, just blowing off steam. So, what do you like to do for fun?”

“Shit uh… I’m not the most sociable, I usually play video games and make music, trap beats mostly. I watch movies sometimes… Uh…”

“Any ideas for somewhere we could go?”

Pico considered bringing her back to his dorm to chill out, but remembered the state it was in and immediately decided against that. He scratched his head in thought. “You… Ever been to an arcade?”

“Nope!”

His eyes widened a little. “Really?”

Lilly sighed a little. “I haven’t done a lot of things… I was _pretty_ sheltered growing up. I’m down to try anything though! I don’t know how they work but an arcade sounds fun!”

Pico nodded and moved to shut his laptop, but froze when he saw what was written on the word document. “Tell her how much you like her.” He slammed it down a little hard.

Lilly glanced at him. “Everything alright?”

“Uh- uh… Yeah! Everything’s fine!”

She tilted her head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah! Uh…” Pico could feel himself start to sweat. “Whoo is hot in this library or what?” He unzipped his jacket.

Lilly tapped her lip. “Hmm I guess they did turn the heater up a bit high didn’t they? You’ll change your mind once you get outside, it’ll be winter in a few weeks.” She stood up.

Pico also stood, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. He wanted to smash that bastard of a laptop on the ground. _What if she saw that sentence?! How did it even know that?!_ First the radio taunting him about Keith every morning and now Lilly too?! Feelings he was trying to bury over the past few weeks were beginning to resurface and he didn’t know if he was comfortable with it. 

Lilly bowed and gestured to the door. “You lead the way.” 

Pico headed outside, the frigid air hit him like a truck. He shuddered, zipped his jacket right back up and hunched over.

Lilly adjusted her cardigan, wrapped her arms around herself and followed Pico. She commented, “hey at least we’re almost finished with the project.”

“Thank god it’s almost over…” he saw the look on Lilly’s face and quickly stated, “not that I don’t like working with you! It’s just that writing that paper is exhausting.” 

Lilly moved a little closer to him. “So, about that, I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“After this, we don’t have to _stop_ catching up… I noticed you’re online early in the morning, you get up around 7am right?”

  
 _  
_ _How does she know that? Did my discord tell her somehow?_ “That’s right…”

“Would you like to grab breakfast with me? We live in the same dorm building. We could make it a thing? Before classes start?”

Pico shoved all thoughts of that being a romantic gesture down far far into the recesses of his brain. “Sure, I’d love to.”

The smile on her face made his heart sing. The thoughts crawled their way up with bleeding nails. _No! Stop! She’s mentioned her boyfriend to you before!_

She tilted her head and inquired, “hmmm?”

_Oh fuck she noticed you staring at her._ He looked away. “Nothing.” 

Lilly shrugged. “So what do people normally do at an arcade? I know there’s video games, but is that it?”

“Shit I haven’t been to one since I was a kid, but I know that there’s your standard games where to play you gotta put coins into them, and if you run out of lives you gotta pay more to keep playing. There’s also like, ones where you put in coins, play a game of skill or chance and it spits out like, tickets or some shit you can trade in for prizes. The prizes aren’t worth it at all, it’s basically gambling for children.”

“That gambling thing’s a little messed up…”

“Those claw machine things are the same deal.”

Lilly narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Are you good at those?”

“Uh, I haven’t played them much.”

“If I pay for it can you win me a plush?”

Pico blinked. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Makes it a little special.”

“Sure, I guess…” Pico decided to change the subject. “Hey your boyfriend’s not gonna be pissed that we’re hanging out right?”

“Oh no he’s super cool with it! Trust me on that. He’s all good with me having my time with my friends.”

It felt good knowing Lilly and her boyfriend trusted him. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t let them down and make things weird. 

  
Soon the two of them found themselves at the local arcade; flashing neon lights, congratulatory jingles and the sounds of digital bullets surrounded them.

“Oh my god you were right Pico, this is pretty much a casino!”

“What did I tell ya? How much money do you wanna put in each?”

“Oh don’t worry about it, I'll cover the cost.”

Pico sputtered a bit. “Dude you can’t just keep paying for me!”

Lilly pointed to herself. “I have a job.” She then poked Pico in the chest. “You don’t.” 

“I have money though!”

“You mentioned your parents give you a $200 weekly allowance for food, I on the other hand didn’t even need to take out a loan for tuition.”

  
Pico deadpanned. “Ok now you’re just bragging.” 

“I’m trying to make a point! _God!_ Anyway I’m paying and you don’t get a say in the matter! We really need to stop having this argument.” She headed over to the counter.

He followed, gesturing while explaining, “well fine I’ll admit it, I feel guilty taking your money! I don’t wanna be a grifter! What kind of a piece of shit guy would I be if I just used you for cash?”

Lilly’s annoyed expression softened a bit and she turned to face him. “I really appreciate that you care, truly, I do. But this is one way I show that _I_ care. I have a lot of friends who are way less well off than I am, the last thing I want to do is turn into one of those frugal ‘you owe me everything I lent you down to the dime’ types.”

“What if someone takes advantage of that?”

  
She crossed her arms. “Then I cut them off and it’s their loss.”

Pico stared momentarily, then looked away and hunched over, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry... For stirring things up…”

Lilly gave him a half smile. “I’ll accept your apology if you play that game with me.” She pointed to a House of the Dead 4 arcade game. 

“Holy fuck those still exist?”

“Is it old?”

“Oh yeah. Very.”

Lilly exchanged around $50 for credits that were put on a card and the pair picked up the plastic guns attached to the zombie shooter. She inquired, “so, how do you play?”

“So it’s on rails right? The game moves around a map for you, zombies pop up and you shoot them before they get you, got that?” Pico explained.

“Simple enough!” They scanned Lilly’s card and began to play. 

Pico let her be player 1. It took Lilly about a minute to get the hang of the game, but after that they were breezing through the first section. Pico occasionally glanced over at her, she was completely engaged in the game, even starting to rage a little when she missed shots. 

Lilly soon spoke up, “oh my god how do you keep getting so many headshots!? You said you hadn’t played an arcade game in years!”

“I haven’t.”

“You’re such a good shot though???”

  
“I mean, I’ve practiced with the real deal a fair bit,” he explained.

“Oh yeah you did mention something about your parents and guns a few weeks back right?”

“I think so? I’ve been out to ranges and hunting and shit. They were very adamant about teaching me to protect myself.” 

  
“You know what this means right?”

“What?”

“If the zombie apocalypse ever happens, my money’s on you surviving.”

Pico chuckled. “Thanks… I don’t like assuming crap like that about myself, I’ve only seen incel dickheads with too many katanas say they’d kick ass during an apocalypse. Either that or meatheads that like to LARP in militias but couldn’t open a can to save their life.” 

“I don’t know what some of those words mean but I can tell you’re being really insulting right now.”

  
“I am, don’t worry those people deserve it.”

“Harsh Pico!”

He couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face as she laughed. “Anyway, so I can handle hunting rifles, pistols, some automatic weapons…” 

“Oh we have hunting rifles, my dad used to take trips overseas to trophy hunting ranges.”

“What like lions and shit?”

Lilly frowned. “Yeah.”

“Oh that’s fuckin’ annoying. Got all the money in the world and you use it to kill things you won’t even use? I’d rather they buy a forth yacht.”

She was a little flabbergasted at the comment. “We can’t even afford one of those! How rich do you think we are?”

  
“I dunno I heard you mention they own a record label and got a pretty good idea. Anyway, so you can shoot?”

“Nope, never have.”

His jaw dropped. “You have guns around the house and you don’t know how to use them???”

“Yeah! Dad’s real protective.”

“That’s the opposite of protective. What if someone breaks in and you can’t defend yourself??? Tries to hurt you and your family or friends???”

“I’d surrender so I can get out with my life. What would you do?”

“Shoot them! Dude if you wanted I could teach you how to handle those rifles.”

“Oh my god Dad would kill me.”

“No, he’d kill _me._ But I’m willing to put myself out there a little if it means you can keep yourself safe. Like, ok so there’s a spot out in the woods that I go to sometimes because no one fuckin goes out there, it’s about an hour away by car, then a good 20 minutes of walking. I could bring a bag of cans and bottles and teach you to handle a few guns?”

Lilly considered his offer for a moment. “You know what? I’m going to take you up on that. I’m really curious, and you seem to know your stuff.”

Pico could feel his heart beat a little faster. “Awesome, it’ll be fun trust me. Also damn look at this ugly motherfucker.”

They had reached the first boss of the game. A four armed one eyed giant, the game told them its mouth was its weak spot. Lilly got a determined look on her face, they fought valiantly, and won. Lilly then pursed her lips. “Hey so this is really fun, but I also wanna try out some other games?”

“Yeah you can just leave it, the characters will die eventually and it’ll be game over.”

“Oh that’s easy.” They both put their plastic guns back, walking away. Lilly wandered over to a fighting game. “Oooooo do we get to fight each other on this one?”

Pico only recognized one of the characters in this game from Smash Bros. It was King of Fighters VIII. “Yeah, I don’t really play fighting games though so we’ll probably be even.”

Lilly picked Iori, Pico decided to play it safe and pick Terry. They spent about thirty seconds getting the hang of the controls and some combos before actually beginning the fight. One thing that Pico discovered during this fight, Lilly was a fast learner, she very quickly memorized a number of combos and kicked his ass. He threw his head back in frustration before continuing the next round. 

Lilly cut in mid game and stated, “ok just for the record the guy I’m playing as is pretty hot, I like the unhinged style he has.”

“Oh yeah, hard agree on that.” 

Lilly blinked for a moment and glanced at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Wait hang on-”

_Wait a second what did you just agree on?_ “UH. I meant his fighting style!.” He clarified way too quickly. This slip up messed Pico up for long enough for Lilly to win the fight.

She then turned to him and asked. “Pico, are you gay?”

“Fuck, uh, no?” He hated doing this, it always made him uncomfortable. “Bi. I guess…? I’ve never dated anyone…” 

She tapped her lip in thought. “Ok, I’m curious, how do you know if you’ve never dated anyone?”

“... The internet…” Pico tried to focus on the game, he wasn’t about to describe the pornhub rabbit hole he went down as a desperate, lonely teen. “What about you…?”

“Ummmmm… I’ve given it some thought, I don’t think I’d be sure unless I dated a girl, but I love my boyfriend, so I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon unless something goes very wrong.”

“Fair, I guess.”

“... Did I make things awkward…?”

“Uh, yeah kinda. I haven’t even told my parents. I don’t really tell people at all…” 

“Why? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I dunno… I can handle myself… I don’t know if it fits…?”

“It can’t _not_ fit, it’s _you_. Be a little more confident in yourself Pico.” She nudged his arm affectionately. “I mean, you are confident in the things you do, but in yourself as a person? Hmmm there’s some work to do. But you can do it, I know you can!”

“You’re doing the armchair psychiatry thing again.” 

“I’m trying to encourage you!”

“Sure you are…” Pico turned his attention back to the game, but froze when he saw what was written on the screen: “Lilly’s right about you, you’re a failure of a human being.” Pico suddenly covered the screen with his hands. 

Lilly flinched. “Um, what are you doing???”

“N-Nothing.” He didn’t want her to see that. He parted his fingers, saw that the text was gone and withdrew his hands. “Can… Can we play a different game…? Please?”

“Sure… Are you ok Pico?”

“Yeah... “ He ran a hand through his hair. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  
Lilly was concerned. “You’re being a little weird today, did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened. I- Uh… I’m still tired… From the project…” He faked a yawn. “I don’t get much sleep in general, so sometimes I act a bit weird.” Pico shrugged and looked away.

Lilly didn’t buy it, but decided to drop the subject. “Ok, but if you need to go home just tell me and I can walk you there.”

“Thanks… I’d like to play some more games though. The ones that spit out tickets maybe? Also you did want me to win the claw machine for you.”

“Oh damn I nearly forgot! Hey let's do the basketball hoops, the prize games, the claw machine, and then go home?”

He smiled a little. “That sounds fun.”

As they walked to the basketball game, Pico looked back at the fighting game cabinet. Written in big red letters on the screen was “Kill yourself.” Pico wished he didn’t look. 

Lilly picked up the basketball and said, “so, I was on the netball team in high school, watch how many goals I can shoot!”

He watched her absolutely whoop ass at that game, gathering up the tickets as the machine dispensed them. 

The pair played a few more ticket centered games, eventually saving up to trade for a few pieces of candy. 

“Claw machine?” Asked Lilly.

“Claw machine.”

When they found it, Lilly gasped. “Oh my god it’s filled with Pokemon!” She pointed excitedly. “Isn’t Pikachu the best???”

“That’s like, basic as fuck taste in Pokemon, actual fans would kill you for saying that.”

  
“Oh shut up. Do you even play those games?”

“Nope, I watched the cartoon as a kid though. Blastoise was my favourite.”

“Which one’s that? Isn’t there like a thousand of them?”

He shrugged and clarified, “Blastoise is this big blue turtle with water cannons on its back. It’s pretty sick.”

Lilly smiled sweetly at him. “So are you gonna win me a Pikachu or not?”

He sighed. “I’ll win you a Pikachu.”

Twenty tries later, and still no Pikachu in hand, Pico was fuming. He gritted his teeth as he tried for the 21st time, groaning in frustration as the plush slid out of the claw’s grip.

“This fucking thing’s rigged!”

“Right?! This is getting ridiculous, you should’ve had that!”

Pico almost banged his fist on the plastic window, almost, he clenched and unclenched his fist a few times before trying a 22nd time. Finally, the machine let him have it, and a Pikachu dropped into the prize slot. 

Lilly cheered. “Yay!!! Finally! Thank you so much!” She grabbed the toy out of the machine and hugged it tightly. 

Pico was taking deep breaths, trying his best to calm down. He thought the machine would look much nicer with a few bullet holes in it. He turned towards Lilly to ask if it was time to go, but suddenly found himself being pulled into a hug. The young man froze, holding his arms up, as Lilly gave him a tight hug. 

“This has been so much fun, thank you!” She grinned up at him, elated. 

Pico went red in the face, he slowly returned the hug, thinking to himself, _I want to see that look on her face every day of my life._

She then let go of him, took her phone out and said, “smile!” before leaning in towards him.

Pico did as he was told. Lilly snapped a picture of them, posting it to her instagram before he could protest. He watched over his shoulder as she instantly got a like from someone, he tilted his head, noticing that someone with the username ‘_Boyfriend’ had liked it. He then glanced at her username, ‘_Girlfriend’.

_Oh._

He knew she had a boyfriend, she had told him weeks before, but still his heart sank a little. Pico tried to tell himself he was content with just being friends with her. Just like he had to tell himself when thoughts of Keith flooded his mind. _You can’t just fall for everyone who gives you positive attention Pico, especially when they’re taken._ He respected her enough to not want to get in between her and someone else, but he was also so so thankful that her boyfriend was apparently nice enough that he was ok with their friendship. 

Great, now that he thought of Keith, _those_ feelings were drumming up to the surface as well. Lilly was talking about something as they walked back to campus, Pico didn’t register anything she was saying. He tried to shove those emotions down, bury them, burn them, anything, but they wouldn’t go away. 

_I want to tell them._

“Pico…”

_But I don’t want to lose either of them_. 

“Pico.” 

_What the fuck do I do?_

“Pico!”

Pico almost tripped over he stopped so suddenly. Lilly caught his arm and pulled him back upright. 

“Woah there! Are you ok?!”

“Uh.” He gave his head a quick shake. “Yeah.”

Lilly was now very concerned. “You were super quiet on the walk back… Are you absolutely sure you’re ok? You were spacing out really hard."

“Um…”

“I’m walking you to your room. You need to lie down.”

“Ok.”

Lilly hooked her arm under Pico’s and walked him to his dorm.

“Get some water, rest up, then text me when you’re feeling better ok?”

Pico blinked a little, still spaced out. “Yeah… Text me later if I forget…”

“I will.” She let go of him, and watched as he slipped back into his room. 

Pico stumbled over to his bed and sat down, putting his head in his hands. For a while he stayed like that, barely moving. Was it selfish that all he wanted was to spend more time with them? Probably. He got up, emptied his pockets onto his desk, then got out his phone and texted Keith.

  
_Hey_

_Yo!!!_

_Wanna hang out in my dorm on Saturday? I’ll buy pizza._

_Fuck yeah lets pull an all nighter_

_Im game_

Pico then texted Lilly.

_I’m ok. Thank you._

_Goodness I was so worried! :C_

_I’m fine, just tired._

_Go to bed early! I’ll pick you up for breakfast tomorrow at 7:30 :3_

Holy shit he hadn’t seen that emoji in years and it was kind of adorable. Pico smiled down at his phone. He decided to never tell him, or her. But at least he got to have this. At least he got to have this.


	5. When You Come Around

Saturday rolled around fast, Pico had spent the day getting all the work he could do done. That way he could recuperate tomorrow from the all nighter he was about to pull with Keith. He cleaned up his room of all the trash, stuffed as many unfolded clothes into drawers as he could and actually made his bed for once. _There. Presentable._ He admired the minimal amount of work he did for a moment before his radio cut in. 

“He’s not going to like it. He’ll think you’re a slob and leave. Then he’ll say he never wants to see you again.”

Pico rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone, trying to ignore it.

“There’s nothing you can do to make him love you. You’re going to die alone. And die young.”

He glared at it. 

“Make the job a little swifter. Take your pistol and put it in your mouth. At least now someone will find your body before it rots away.”

Pico stormed over and unplugged it. The last thing he wanted was for Keith to hear the stupid thing taunt him. He then texted his soon-to-be visitor. 

_Hey if I transfer you some money can you get 3 pizzas for the both of us?_

_!!! yeah of course!!! What do u want_

_Pepperoni._

_Ill get 3 cheeses_

_You decide the last one, if you get hawaiin though ill kill you_

_;)_

_Don't you dare._

_;;;;;;)))))_

Pico attempted to send the gun emoji.

_FUCK its a water pistol_

_LOL suck shit. U gotta choose otherwise u get pineapple goodness_

_Get meatlovers then._

_Done_

_Bank details please._

He transferred Keith the money, now all there was to do was wait. Pico sat in his desk chair, wheeled it out to the centre of the room, leaned back and began to slowly spin. He was glad the room already came with a chair, but preferred this one greatly. At least that meant there was a chair for Keith. Man this was turning out to be an expensive night over, he even bought a second controller just for Keith to play games in person with him. 

About 40 minutes of scrolling Youtube later, there was a knock on the door. Pico quickly opened the door to see Keith singing, “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amore~.”

Pico chuckled and stepped aside. “Get your ass in here.” 

Keith set the pizzas down on the countertop and immediately got stuck into snooping. “Oh shit your room has the same layout as my girlfriend’s.  
  


“Well yeah, it’s a dorm. None of the furniture’s mine, well except the computer chair.” He gestured to it.

Keith immediately claimed it, sitting on it backwards and leaning over the back rest. 

Pico decided he didn’t give too much of a shit about that, picked up the pizzas and set them open on his bed.

Keith grabbed a slice, asking, “so, how’s your day been?”

Pico sat down and sighed, eating as they talked. “Boring, got all my work done.” 

“Oh damn, sure you’re not gonna pass out on me tonight?”

“Look at the bags under my eyes.” He pulled down an eyelid. “Do you think I sleep? In general?”

“You being serious?” 

Pico nodded. 

“Insomniac?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit how are you still alive? Can’t no sleep kill someone?”

“I do sleep, sometimes, it’s just really hard. And I either have no dreams or horrific fucking nightmares. Well, the nightmares only come when the radio’s off.”

“I was about to ask why you have that old thing. No one listens to radio anymore. You got Spotify?”

“Nah I just listen through Youtube.”

“Eugh.”  
  


“What?”

“The two ads before and after every damn video.”

“It’s called an adblocker!”

Keith pointed to the posters on his wall. They featured various classic and modern day hip hop artists. “You’ve got good taste man. Aren’t half those artists dead?”

Pico counted on his fingers. “Fuck, five of them.” 

Keith lightly put his fist to his chest. “Rest in peace. Wanna listen to anything while we eat?”

“Oh, yeah.” Pico mulled over who to listen to over a slice of pizza. He eventually settled on vibing to Lil Peep. 

As they ate, Keith pointed out one more poster. “Ok, that one sticks out to me, I thought you hated rock?”

Pico looked over to see him pointing at a Pink Floyd’s The Wall poster. “It’s the only one I like. Everyone on the internet is all ‘if you don’t like this album you have shit taste’ so I gave it a go when I was 15. It’s my one exception.” 

Keith continued to glance around the room, his eyes resting on something under Pico’s bed. “What’s that?”

Pico took a look. “My keyboard, it’s a bit big so I keep it there when I’m not playing.”

“Shiiit you play keyboard?! That’s so cool!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? When I was young I thought it was the gayest shit.”

“No way, you can do so much with it! We could try playing something?”

“When I finish eating.”

The two of them made idle smalltalk as they finished their pizzas. Pico set up his keyboard, Keith pulled out a microphone from his pocket.

“Dude do you just carry a microphone around with you wherever you go???”

“Why not? Never know when I’ll need it. So, show me what you can do!”

“Uhhhh… Lets see if you recognize this.” Pico played the intro to Still Dre by Dr Dre.

“YOOOO!!! That’s so cool!!!”

Pico grinned. “Want something more modern? You gotta guess what I’m playing though.”

Keith nodded, listening. “Uhhh… Robbery by Juice WRLD?”

“Bingo.”

“Fuck yeah! Dude lets do something we can play together!”

“Uh… Do you like Gorillaz?”

“Their older stuff yeah.”

“Clint Eastwood?”

“I’ll beatbox to that.”

“I’ll rap.”

  
The pair dueted a classic Gorillaz track. Keith was ecstatic. “This is fire dude! This brings me way back.”

“Yeah? You jammed out to this as a kid?”

“Oh yeah, oh my god I just had a thought.”

“Huh?”

“Remember when Handlebars by Flobots dropped and every 13 year old lost their fucking minds? Including me?”

“I feel old now, thanks.”

They continued to jam out until they got a knock on the door telling them to keep the noise down.

Pico grumbled as he shut the door, sighed and turned to Keith. “Borderlands?”

“Oh fuck yeah.”

By now they were on Borderlands 2. Pico booted the game up on his laptop, hooked up both controllers and sat beside Keith who was raring to go. He glanced over to spot Keith smiling at the screen, and fully understood why his girlfriend liked him so much. 

They got to the character selection after the intro. Keith asked, “who are you picking?”

“Maya, she’s hot, especially with long hair.”

“I’m going that Zero dude, for the same reason you’re going as her.”

Pico looked at him questioningly.

Keith noticed. “What? You never met a bi dude before?”

_Holy shit._ “Uh…” _Fuck it._ “I have, you’re looking at one.” 

For a moment Pico was nervous, but the look on Keith’s face made it worth it. “AAAYYYY!!!” He held up a hand for a high five.

  
Pico did not expect this reaction, but welcomed it nonetheless. He high fived Keith. They spent the next five or so hours straight playing Borderlands 2. Eventually they grew tired, and decided to just sit around and vibe to some music to wind down. 

Keith asked, “so, if you thought piano was lame when you were younger, what did young Pico listen to?”

Pico cringed. “Edgy, _edgy_ shit. Thought I was hardcore. I mean, I’m badass as fuck, but you know what teens are like.”

“Examples…?”

“Ok, to preface, I still like these songs. Just not in the same way I did back then.” He proceeded to play a few songs through his laptop. Namely 2pac’s Hit Em Up, Tyler the Creator’s Garbage and Cypress Hill’s How I Could Just Kill a Man.

Keith got really excited at the last one. “Dude I’ve only heard covers of this!!! Also this isn’t edgy, when I think edgy I think some emo kid crying to MCR.” 

Pico clarified, “yeah but when a fourteen year old bumps this shit thinking they’re gangsta after growing up in the most milktoast suburb? Edgy.”

Keith’s eyes went wide. “Oh god… Fuck you’ve got a point. I grew up poor so I guess I can relate a little…?”

“Oh, no, I can relate to some of the songs. They just don’t describe my lifestyle at all.”

He furrowed his brows. “You can relate…? I know you’re packing heat but…”

Pico just realized that he had talked himself into a bit of a corner. “Shit…” He then saw Keith typing on his laptop, changing the music. 

“I’ve got a song you’ve probably heard that you might need to have another listen to if you’re thinking of going around shooting people.”

Pico protested, “I’m not-” And then he heard the intro of the song Keith played. Childish Gambino’s This Is America. He practically slammed down the spacebar.

“Hey what the fuck!”

“No. Not that one.”

“Why??? You got some kind of problem?”

“It’s too real.” 

“What??? You think that other shit you played wasn’t?”

“That’s not what I- well Garbage isn’t but that’s not the point! I can separate myself from those other ones, but that one? I can’t listen to it. I know it’s not about me or what I went through but it’s close enough.”

“Wait, what you went through?”

“...” Pico just stared at him.

Keith shook his head. “I’m confused.”

“Fuuuuuck… You mind me bringing down the mood?”

“No not at all bro. I’ve vented to you if you need to do the same go ahead.”

“...You ever heard the name of-” he said the name of his elementary school.

“Uh… I don’t think so.”

“Google it.” 

Keith took out his phone, and googled it to find a news story about a school shooting that took place nine years ago. His jaw dropped, he slowly looked up at Pico and pointed at his phone.

Pico nodded.

“No… No way…”

“Yeah, way.” 

“Were you there when that happened?”

“Yeah, I was eleven.”

“Oh my god.” Keith had an absent look on his face. “Ok you _really_ don’t have to talk about this…”

“I kept saying I would so I might as well.”

Keith swallowed, and listened.

“I was in class, health I think, the teacher was talking about fruit or something. And out of nowhere one of the fucking goth kids in my class got up, started yelling at the teacher, pulled out a gun and killed her.”

“...”

“I was lucky enough to not get shot, she ran out, I followed and got stopped by one of her friends, who also had a gun. I tried to ask for mercy, and he shot me.”

“........”

“I think he thought I was dead, because he left. I got up, blood all down my shirt and pants, and went into the janitor’s closet to hide. And that’s where I found it.”

“...Found what…?”

“There was a machine gun in the janitor’s closet.”

“Uh…”

“So I took it, followed the trail of destruction and death, and killed every single one of the motherfuckers that hurt my classmates.”

Keith blinked, he went a little pale and read the news story on his phone over again. 

“Keith…?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not saying anything.”

Keith laughed nervously. “What am I supposed to say…?”

Pico’s heart sank. “I’m not scaring you am I…?”

“Uh, it’s just that, um. The news doesn’t say anything about that…”

“Oh yeah, I think they covered it up. Didn’t want me taking the glory away from the cops is my bet.”

Keith eyed Pico, then his phone. That would’ve made national news, if a kid with a gun saved their classmates from school shooters. 

“But hey, I got the scars to prove it, they can’t cover that up.”

“...Scars?”

“Yeah, wanna see?”

Keith nodded.

Pico lifted up his shirt; there were three healed puncture wounds on his side, as well as a long surgery scar stretching down the center of his abdomen. “Those bullet wounds fucked me up for a while… After the doctors got done rearranging my insides and I was healed enough to study again I asked my parents to buy me a gun. That way nothing like what happened that day will ever happen again.”

Keith could barely believe his eyes. “Can I touch them…?”

“Uh, sure.”

Keith got up, sat on the bed beside Pico and ran his fingertips down his scar. 

Pico went red in the face, this was a little more intimate than he thought it’d be.

Keith met his gaze, what Pico was saying finally, truly hit him. “So you’re saying, that in one day, you had to see your classmates die, got hurt, and were made into a killer…?” 

“When you put it like that-” Pico flinched when Keith wrapped his arms around him. 

“That’s the saddest shit I’ve ever heard…” squeaked out Keith through tears. 

Pico was… He didn’t know what he was feeling. He thought he was numb to it. That he could take on anything. But now his crush was holding him and crying. For the first time in a long time his ‘certified badass’ shield crumbled, and he found himself tearing up. He held Keith and shakily reassured, “hey… It’s alright… I’m still here… I can keep myself safe…”

“Who the fuck does that to their classmates… Who makes a kid feel so cornered that their only option is to kill or be killed…?”

Cornered. Was that how he felt back then? He couldn’t remember. Pico tightened his hold on Keith and quietly said, “can I just… Reassure you of something…?”

Keith nodded.  
  
“...I’d never hurt you… Or anyone else here… I’m not like that… I care about you, and I don’t know how you feel about this now, but you can trust me... “ _I’d do anything for you._ “Nothing’s gonna happen to me, or the people I care about, as long as I have anything to say about it.” 

Keith wiped his eyes and sat up, still with an arm around Pico. He sniffled and said surely, “I won’t let anything happen to you either man, we’re homies, I trust you.”

  
Pico gave him a half smile and wiped away a couple of stray tears. “That means a lot…”

“It’s like, three am, do you mind if I stay the night? I know I said we would pull an all nighter but I don’t feel like video games anymore, and I don’t want to just leave you.”

“Yeah, uh, I can take the couch…?”

“No no, I’ll take the couch.”

“Absolutely not, you’re a guest.”

“You’re too big for the couch!”

“Well we can’t both take the bed-”

“Why not?”

Pico’s brain did not compute. “Why… Not?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“I… Guess there’s no reason not to…” _Holy fuck he wants to sleep next to you._

“It’s settled then.” Keith kicked off his shoes, took off his cap, turned off the lights and told him, “scoot over.”

Pico did as he said.

  
Keith kicked off the sheets and snuggled under them.

Pico slowly did the same, watching as the young man texted his girlfriend. 

“Alright she’s ok with it, dude she’s worried about you.” 

“Oh, uh, tell her I’ll be alright…?” He didn’t know how someone he’d never met could be worried about him.

Keith did exactly that, put his phone on charge and then turned to face Pico.

The redhead tried to keep as much of a poker face as possible, internally he was in full bi panic mode. “I’m gonna, um…” He rolled over to face the wall, freezing when he felt an arm wrap around him and a body press against his back. _Was Keith…? No way._

“Is this ok…?”

_YES._ “Uh…”

  
“I can stop if you want.”

“No. Don’t.” Keith was fucking spooning him. 

“You know that meme, kissing the homies goodnight? I’d do that, but I’m taken, so.” 

_Oh my god. Do. Do guys do this? Normally?_ “Uh huh.”

“Night Pico.” Keith closed his eyes.

“...Night Keith…” Pico spent the rest of the night with a hand over his mouth, wide eyed, trying to keep himself contained. Eventually he calmed down, basking in the feeling, allowing the rhythm of Keith’s gentle breathing to guide him to sleep.   
  


  
  
  



	6. Get Your Kicks

Today was sunny, yet chilly, overcast with no chance of rain or snow. _ Perfect _ , Pico thought. Soon, Lilly would be coming over with breakfast. Considering their project was now finished and submitted, Lilly had reminded him of his offer to teach her to shoot, and Pico was more than happy to oblige. He had even purchased extra ammo for the occasion. The young man had finished getting dressed in a camo jacket and brown pants, deciding on boots rather than sneakers considering where they were going. He packed some lunch and his uzi into his bag, then his pistol into its usual spot in his pocket.

Pico looked around his room for anything he may be forgetting. His radio chimed in, “you do realize she’s a girl right?”

“Huh???” He stared at it.

  
“A rich one at that.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Are you really going to let the girl you like see the state of your room?”

Pico froze. “SHIT.” His eyes practically zoomed in on the trash, clothes and empty drinks hanging around. He checked his phone, about twenty minutes until Lilly would be over. “Fuuuuuck!” Of all the things he’d forget to do. Pico began to rush around the room, haphazardly cleaning up, he even remade his bed and organized his desk space. 

He was spraying a bit of air freshener around the room when he heard that annoying staticky voice. “You’re going to kill her.”

“Wh- Excuse me?!” His anxiety had immediately flipped to anger. 

“Something bad will happen today, you know it will. An accident. A misfire. Whatever it is, someone will die and it will be your fault.”

Pico gritted his teeth, pointed at it and growled, “you’re lucky you help me sleep. Otherwise you’d get the business end of a bat.” 

“Go on. Use it. Your handgun. Prove to everyone around you that you’re nothing more than a gun toting idiot with a happy trigger finger, you liked it when you killed those kids didn’t you?”

“They shot my classmates!!!”

“You’ll never be anything more than a killer, who else will be on the business end of your uzi? Lilly today? Keith later?”

“ _ Never.”  _ Pico was clenching his fists hard enough to leave marks.

“You want to prevent that don’t you? There’s an easy solution. Kill yourself Pico. Do it before she gets here. Make sure to leave a pretty corpse.” 

Pico raised his hand to smash it down on the radio, when a knock on the door froze him mid swing. His hands were shaking as he answered it. 

Two coffees were held up towards him, Lilly smiled sweetly. “Hi Pico!”

_ Calm down. Calm down. She’s here. It’ll shut up. Everything will be ok. _ “Hey Lilly…” He took a coffee and stepped aside, letting her in. 

She hummed to herself as she took their breakfast out of her bag, she handed him a bacon and egg sandwich before asking, “can I sit?”

“Yeah go ahead.” He sat beside her on his bed as she took the desk chair. He couldn’t help but notice that she listened to him when he suggested she wear something sturdy today. Jeans, proper boots, a puff vest and tied up hair. She loved dresses but he had reminded her that that wouldn’t cut it in the woods. 

Lilly crossed her legs and drank some of her coffee. “How are you today?”

He sat up straighter. “Alright, yourself?”

“I’m good…” She pointed at him. “Are you sure you’re ok though? You usually smile when I say hello.”

“Uh… Radio was acting up.”

“Ooohh… Did the announcer say something you didn’t like?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let it get you too down! We’re having a day out!” She grinned a little. “Is it bad that I’m kind of excited???”

The look in her eyes was enough to wrench him out of his bad mood. “No not at all. I’ve been pretty pumped about this the past few days. I’ve packed up everything, we just gotta get that rifle from your house.”

  
“And my car.”

“That too… Shit imagine if we took an uber to the woods? That’d be a trip.”

“I think the driver would think you’re a serial killer.”

Pico raised an eyebrow. “You don’t… Think I’m a serial killer right…”

Lilly laughed. “If you are then you’ve invested a  _ lot  _ of time studying with me, you coulda just pushed me in front of a train when we went to the station that one time!”

Pico winced a little. “Please don’t joke about that.”

Lilly’s eyes went wide for a split second. “Oh! Before I forget!” She unlocked her phone and opened google maps. “Could you mark exactly where we’re going please? So I can tell my boyfriend?”

“Yeah of course.” He took the phone and did as she asked.

She texted her boyfriend and put the phone away. “Thank you.”

Pico finished eating, sipping at his drink as he watched her glance around his room. 

“It’s nice in here.”

“MmmmHmmm.”

She narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Too nice.”

“Uh.”

“You cleaned up for me, didn’t you?”

Pico felt the heat rising to his cheeks. “No.”

“Liar liar, look at your desk! The way you positioned the pens? There’s no way you didn’t clean up.”

“Maybe I like a tidy workspace!”

“No you don’t! I’ve worked with you for months, organization is not your forte.”

_ Caught. Damn. _ He grumbled, “what was I supposed to do? Have you wade through trash?”

She laughed a bit. “It’s not a problem, I think it’s kinda sweet.”

_ Kinda… Sweet? _ He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from her. 

Lilly balled up the paper leftover from her sandwich, lobbed it into his bin and stood up. “Alright, got everything?”

“Have you?” He followed her lead. “Just one thing.” He reached under his counter and pulled out a full bin bag that had been tied off.

Lilly asked, “that’s the cans right?”

“And bottles. We need targets so I saved up for a few weeks.” 

“Look at you, thinking ahead!”

“That’s not a compliment.”

Lilly’s smile faded. “Hey I'm just trying to cheer you up a little. Don’t let some dumb newscaster get you down ok?”

_ If you knew what they said you wouldn’t be saying that. _ Pico closed his eyes, sighed and smiled a little. “I can’t stay mad around you anyway.”

Lilly patted his shoulder and exited the room with him. 

She was in the middle of booking an uber when a 1st year student walked in front of her, holding out a flyer. They said, “hey, we’re organizing an alternative music night for late next month. You’re some of the music students right? Down to come along?”

Lilly waved a hand. “No thanks!”

  
To her surprise, Pico took the flyer. 

The student waved and went back to bothering other students. 

“I didn’t think you were into that kinda thing!”

Pico didn’t respond.

“Um, Pico?”

He was just staring at it. There was a date and a time set for about a month and a half away. The flyer was black with red and white lettering. 

Lilly could see him shaking a little. She gently grabbed his arm, feeling him stiffen a bit. “Pico. Come on, let's go. Throw that out.”

Pico looked at her, then back to the flyer. He then shoved it in his pocket. “Later.”

She noticed him staring at that student, placed a hand on the small of his back, and began to lead him away. She clicked her fingers. “Hey! Look at me!”

  
Pico looked at her. 

“We’re going to my house now, you’ll be good to drive?”

“Shit, yeah I am driving to the spot aren’t I?”

“Yeah you are! We’re gonna have so much fun!”

Pico smiled. “There’s a lot I gotta tell you before we start shooting though, I’ll tell you when we get there. It’s like, basic safety, how to hold the weapons, that kinda thing. What kind of hunting rifle does your dad have?”

“I don’t know the breeds of gun, Pico.”

This got him chuckling. “ _ Breeds of gun? _ ”

“Yep, at this point I'm a little scared to ask.”

“You’re quoting some bullshit I can tell.”

“I’ll just show you it when we grab it.” Internally, Lilly breathed a sigh of relief, it looked like she had snapped Pico out of his daze. Poor guy, she had heard about what happened that night with her boyfriend. She wasn’t surprised that the flyer set him off slightly. 

The pair got in the uber and about 25 minutes later arrived at Lilly’s parent’s house. It was basically a small mansion on a hill. Pico was a little shocked when he saw it. “Fuck, you’re rich rich huh?”

“Wait until you see my car.”

“Great now I'm scared I’ll be in perma-debt if I crash the thing.”

“You won’t crash!”

They exited the vehicle and walked up the driveway to the front door. Pico quietly asked, “they’re not home are they?”

“They’re always busy, practically never home, I know for a fact mom’s out doing something. Dad though? Probably at work. You’ll be fine.”   
  


“Speaking of your dad, he knows we’re taking his gun, right?”

Lilly nervously laughed as she unlocked the door. “Why would he???”

“Oh my god.”

“It’ll be fine!”

“If he finds out my ass is fucking  _ grass _ Lilly,” insisted Pico.

“Well he’s not gonna find out, soooo…”

“Shit  _ and  _ he’s into big game, he’s gonna play the most dangerous game with me as the target.”

“Nahhhh. Come ooooon.” She waved him off. “I’ll grab the gun, you wait in the foyer-”

“I should grab the gun. You don’t know how to handle them right yet.”

She thought for a second, then nodded. “Fair. Fair point. Come with me, oh, don’t step in the front living room.”

“Why?”

“We don’t use it.”

“You… Have a living room you don’t use?”

  
“Right? It’s for show.” 

Lilly led him through the expansive house, Pico took note of the framed records on the walls, the expensive paintings and the awards neatly organized into display cabinets. She led him to a room near the back of the house which reeked of decadence, fur carpet, red silk couches, a massive TV, expensive alcohol, the works. Trophy heads lined the walls. “Is… This your dad’s hangout spot?”   
  


“Yeah it’s like his man cave, the gun’s above the fireplace over there.” Lilly pointed to it.   
  
“This is the most boomer ass rich person shit I’ve ever seen…” Pico went up to the rifle, plucking it off of the wall. He studied it for a moment, and then his jaw dropped. “This is heym express magnum… What the fuck this is worth over ten grand!”

“It’s neat isn’t it?”

Pico grinned. “Better than neat… You know where he keeps his ammo right?”

“I do!”

“We’re gonna need to replace it on the trip back so he doesn’t suspect anything.”

“Can do!” Lilly pulled a painting off of the wall to reveal a hidden safe, she entered the combination and opened it. Pico went to peer inside but Lilly held a hand up. “Um, I’d prefer if you didn’t, privacy reasons.”

“Oh, sorry.” He stepped away. 

Lilly took a magazine box out of the safe, closed it and replaced the painting. She then turned to him and stated. “Time to get out of here.” Throwing him a car key.

He caught it and grinned before following her to the garage. The smile faded however when he saw the car. A new and expensive looking red honda accord. _ Oh no. _

“What do you think? Cute isn’t it? I got it for my 18th!”

“Oh it’s a nice car, that’s the problem.” He unlocked it, put everything in the trunk and got in. 

So did Lilly. “Why’s that so bad?”

“I learned to drive in a beat up lancer evo 4. Not too big a cost if it got wrecked. My brain sometimes jumps to the worst case scenario and all I can picture is me totalling this thing.”

“Pico just don’t be an idiot and we’ll be fine.”

“I’m not an idiot, other people can be though…” Despite Pico’s concerns, the two of them arrived safely at the spot he marked on her map, and after an additional 20 minutes of walking, came across a wide clearing in the woods. Pico opened the bag of targets and began to set them up on logs and rocks strewn around the clearing. 

Lilly was practically bouncing in place. 

Pico went up to her and said. “Alright, listen up. This is some serious shit right here so take note of what I say and don’t forget it, ok?”

Lilly nodded.

Pico took some earplugs out of his bag and handed them to her, putting some in himself. He then pulled out his glock. “See this switch? That’s the safety. If you’re not using it, always keep it on safety, never have it off of safety unless you’re about to shoot.” He stood beside her and held it out in front of him. “Never have your finger on the trigger unless you’re about to shoot, always rest it off of the trigger.”

Lilly took note.

“Even if it’s unloaded and on safety, never aim it at somebody, even as a joke. You either aim it upwards, or down. Straight up or down. Also don’t aim the fuckin thing sideways. I can do that because I’m good at this, you can’t, you’ll get hurt. I’m gonna give it to you, it’s unloaded right now, but I need to teach you how to hold it right.”

She shook her hands. “Ok…” He passed the gun to her. 

Pico stood over her shoulder and showed her how to position her hands. He tried to keep a serious disposition, which was a little hard when he was practically hugging her from behind. “So always use two hands when holding a pistol, especially if you’re a beginner. These things have serious kickback, way more than an assault rifle. I don’t want it flying back and hitting you in the face. Also don’t be an idiot like me and have your thumb up way too high so that when the slide goes back it hits your thumb and you gotta wash lead out of it…”

Lilly nervously smiled. “Got it.”

Pico let go of her, took out a clip and showed her how to load it. “Now, we’re gonna hit some of these targets. I’ll go first, show you how it’s done, and then you get to have a go.” He aimed at one of the targets, pulled the trigger, and the bottle exploded. 

Lilly flinched a little. 

He turned to her. “Are you ready?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “I’m a little anxious…”

“Want me to help you?”

“Yes please.”

He helped her position the gun in her hands, showed her where to aim, and then placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t close your eyes. Take a breath, you can do it, I know you can.”

Lilly gently squeezed the trigger. Bang! A can went flying. Her eyes went wide, she suddenly looked at Pico.

“Gun on safety.”

She placed it on safety before letting a big smile break out on her face. “Oh my god, I did it!”

“Wasn’t that bad was it?”

“No… Jesus christ my heart though!” 

Pico put a hand up, Lilly gave him a hi five. “Hit a couple more targets and then we’ll switch guns.”

Lilly missed a few, and hit a few, she poked her tongue out as she aimed. Pico thought that was adorable. Soon he showed her how to handle her dad’s rifle. How to reload it, how to position it, and how to fire. They aimed at a tree at the very edge of the clearing, just to be safe.

Lastly, he took his uzi out of his bag. “This one’s no joke. It’s a submachine gun.”

Lilly was a bit shocked. “Woah woah woah. A machine gun?”

“It’s an uzi.”

“How do you have that?”

“It’s an old model so it wasn’t the most expensive, jumped through a bunch of legal hoops. The usual. We’re not gonna fire it too much, I can’t afford that much ammo for it.”

Lilly swallowed, she didn’t know he had that.

“You alright?”

“Uh, yes.”

He loaded the gun, kept it on pistol mode, and shot it at the tree until the magazine was empty.

Lilly watched in awe. 

“I’m gonna show you how to load it, unload it, everything to do with safety. We’re gonna shoot it and then I’ll show you how to take it apart alright? Gotta know how to take care of a gun if you’re gonna have one.”

Her expression turned serious and she nodded. “Ok. I can do this.” 

They spent around an hour on that gun alone. All the targets were gone by the end of it. He admired her confidence, thinking she was the most badass and beautiful girl he had ever met. Lilly insisted on picking up the trash instead of leaving it. Pico was putting the parts of his uzi in his bag when he felt a weight on his back. 

“Hello~”

He went red in the face. “Uh, what are you doing…?”

“Stand up.”

He did, it took much more effort than usual considering Lilly had wrapped her arms and legs around his back. He took hold of her legs so she wouldn’t fall. Pico tried to keep his voice steady. “We’re not walking back like this…”

She was giggling to herself. “Awww come on it’ll be fun!”

“That means I’d have to carry all the bags!”

“You’re strong, you can do it~” she teased.

He crouched down, trying his best to not tease her back. “Down you get. I’m already driving, the least you can do is carry some things.”

Lilly picked up her backpack and the bag of trash. “Done!”

Pico couldn’t help but love her smile, her eyes, the way she looked at him. 

As they were walking back to the car Lilly pushed him just a little. “Hey, so, I just wanted to say thanks, for today.”

“It’s chill. Thanks for coming with me.”

“It’s nice to see something else you’re passionate about! You get this fire in your eyes, it’s so cool to watch!”

  
_ Huh. Passionate.  _ He remembered she said something about this once. He guessed that was a good word to describe him. He liked it. The only thing Pico regretted, at the end of that day, was that he never got to hold her hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many advantages to having American friends, especially when one is a gun nerd. Also if anyone is curious about my sources on Pico's schizophrenia and the way it's manifesting I'd be happy to talk about it (i'll probably talk about it next chapter lol, or if anyone has questions i'm more than happy to answer).


	7. Psychosocial

He didn’t sleep the night before. This wasn’t unusual, but it was frustrating. Pico lied in bed, staring at the wall. He tapped his phone to check the time, it was almost 7am, he’d be getting up soon. Even though it was the weekend there was no point in staying in bed if he couldn’t sleep. The young man pulled the blankets up over his shirtless body and snuggled under them a bit more, blinking tiredly. 

He smiled a little, thinking about having breakfast with Lilly, about stopping by Keith’s show to talk to him. Maybe even hanging out with one of them? He became excited for the day ahead, today would be good, he told himself.  _ Today will be good.  _ He checked the phone again, 6:55am.  _ Just a few more minutes.  _ His mind drifted to them again; how soft Lilly’s skin was when he hugged her, the pressure on his back when Keith put his arms around him. He craved that feeling again, of being held, of being loved by someone. 

He closed his eyes, reminiscing on that feeling. How comforting it was, how comforting it _ is _ . It’s almost like he could feel someone lying behind him. He felt hands grip his shoulders tight, and his eyes shot open. Something began to shake him, back and forth, violently. Loud, metallic banging echoed through the walls of his bedroom. Pico wrenched his elbow back to hit whatever it was that was grabbing him, colliding with air. He kicked the sheets off and leaped out of bed, hurriedly turning on the light, unlocking his drawer and grabbing his glock. 

The young man frantically searched his room.  _ What the fuck just happened?! Who was that?!  _ Under the bed? Nothing. In the closet? Nothing. Under the counter? The desk? Nothing. His door was locked tight, nothing could get in, and nothing could get out without unlocking it. Pico started shaking, he put the gun down on his desk.  _ Was… Did a ghost do that???  _ That was ridiculous, Pico didn’t believe in ghosts. 

He tried to control his hyperventilating, slowly walked to the minifridge, and got himself an iced coffee. Maybe he had fallen asleep and had a nightmare…?  _ No, I was wide awake. That happened. I know it did. _ He took a sip of the drink and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. Suddenly, a voice echoed behind him. “Hello!” 

He flinched, almost dropping it, he placed it on the counter and turned around. Nothing was there. 

The voice started up again. “Hello!” Then more of them. “Hello hello hello!” 

It sounded like 20 different people were speaking at once.

“Hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello hello.”

Pico covered his ears and shut his eyes tightly. “Shut up shut up please please just shut up…” The voices didn’t get any less loud. 

Then, one familiar, staticky tone pierced through all of them. “Hello there Pico.” He opened his eyes, they fixated on the radio. “You know they’re going to kill them.”

Tears were welling up in his eyes. “...Going to kill who…?”

“Your new friends. The ones you love so so much.”

“Who…? Who’s going to?”

“You know who. You’ve seen them around. There’s more of them lately, and I know you’ve noticed them. Talking to your friends, trying to lure them to that event. You’ll never be able to save them, you might as well kill yourself now before they get too attached to you.”

Pico gripped his hair. “No…  _ No no no no!!! _ There has to be something I can do!!! I have to do something… I gotta save them…”

“They’re coming for you Pico, just like they did all those years ago. And they’ll cut down everyone on campus to get to you. They’ll kill your friends. They even told you when they’d do it.”

Pico’s eyes widened. He rushed over to his desk, moved aside some of the rubbish and pulled out a black flyer with red and white writing. There was a date and time on it, for next month. The words, “Let's Kill Tonight!” were written on it. 

“You see, Pico?”

“I can’t… I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen…” He grabbed the radio from his bedside table. “How do I save them!!! Tell me!!!” 

“Kill or be killed Pico. Take them out, or take their target out.”

He shakily placed the radio back onto the table. Pico dropped to his knees, then turned so his back was to the table.

“Make it easy for yourself. Kill yourself Pico. It’s not like you can tell them. It’s not like they’ll ever understand.”

Pico curled up, placing his hands over his ears. He started to sob as the radio repeated for him to kill himself over and over and over. He didn’t hear the ringing of his phone, or the messages. But a loud knock at the door made him jump. 

  
He didn’t want to know what was behind it. 

He then heard a muffled voice. “Pico?! Are you in there?!”

Trembling, he got to his feet. Stumbling a little as he got to the door, he opened it a crack to see Lilly. Relief rushed over him, he opened the door fully. 

Lilly saw his red eyes, unkempt hair and lack of a shirt. She was immediately worried. “Pico…? Oh my god are you ok??? It’s eight o’ clock, I tried calling you about breakfast but you didn’t pick up…”

“I… I…” Tears welled up again. 

Lilly looked around the hall, went into his room and closed the door. She glanced down at the scars on his stomach for a brief moment. She spoke softly. “What happened…?”

_ It’s not like she’ll understand. _ “I… I had a nightmare… I don’t sleep often so…” 

“Oh honey…” She pulled him into a hug, he returned it, burying his head in her shoulder. She gently stroked his back as he trembled in her arms. “It’s ok… Whatever happened, it can’t hurt you anymore…”

_ That’s not true, someone has to get hurt or you will. _ “Yeah…” 

She gently let go of him and put a hand on his cheek. “Get ready ok…? I’ll stay right here. Let's get you out of this room.”

He nodded and slowly began to gather a change of clothes, his shower bag and a towel. “I’ll be back…”

Lilly offered him a sympathetic smile as he left the room. She immediately texted Keith.

_ Something happened to Pico. _

_ O shit what happened _

_ I don’t know, but he missed breakfast, so I tried calling him. He didn’t respond so I went to his room. And he was crying! Said he had a nightmare :CCCC _

_ Fuck dude. Mustve been about the incident, pico dont look like the type to cry _

_ What should I do? I’m waiting in his room for him to take a shower. _

_ Its the weekend. We all could chill out to get his mind off things _

_ Exams are soon though, we were going to spend some time studying together. _

_ Chill time and then study _

_ You know what? You’re right. He comes before exams. _

_ Coolio ill get out of bed then _

Lilly leaned against the wall, she was a little shaken up, seeing him like that. Something wasn’t right, she could feel it, but she also didn’t want to make things worse by pressing him on the issue. 

About fifteen minutes later Pico came back, a lot more freshened up, but still tired looking. “Um… I’m just gonna have cereal today…”

“No problem.”

Pico made himself a bowl and sat on the countertop, Lilly sat beside him. “Do you… Want to talk about it?”

“No.” He continued eating. 

“That’s ok. So, while you were out, I texted my boyfriend. We’re going to take you out today.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Take me out…?”

“Yeah, somewhere fun.”

“We were… Uh… Weren’t we gonna study?”

“I think we could all use a little breather. The stress can pile on a bit thick, we could all benefit from some time out. Afterwards we’ll study.”

Pico nodded, finishing his food and putting the bowl down. He got up, put his phone, his wallet and his gun in his pockets and then turned to Lilly. “Isn’t it a bit early…?”

“Most places open at nine and my boyfriend is still getting ready. We could meet him in my room?”

Pico was curious, he had never been to her room before, nor had he met her boyfriend. “Yeah, sounds good.” After a few minutes they walked downstairs to Lilly’s dorm. Pico was a little nervous to meet this guy. She’d talk about him occasionally but never too often. Apparently he was big on music too? He wondered if they were in the same class. 

Lilly unlocked the door and opened it for Pico. 

He walked in.

“ _ Pico!!! _ ” 

All Pico saw was a rush of blue before someone jumped up onto him, he grabbed the guy so he wouldn’t fall, almost tumbling backwards himself. He was then met with Keith’s face about an inch from his. He went bug eyed. “K-Keith?!”

Keith held onto him tightly and leaned his head on Pico’s shoulder. “How are you buddy??? Heard you had a nightmare, if it comes back kick its ass for me will you?”

Pico stood there, holding Keith’s 5’5” frame as he clung to Pico’s 6’2” body. “You… You’re Lilly’s boyfriend?!”

“What? Is that a surprise?”

Lilly laughed and shut the door. “Wait you didn’t know?!”

Pico turned to her, still holding Keith. “No one told me! You never said each other’s names!”

Keith chuckled. “Shiiiiit. Our bad.”

Lilly then took a photo of the two of them. 

Pico went red. “H-hey!”

Lilly was smiling. “You two are too cute.”

Pico let go of Keith, the other young man was still clinging to him. “What are you a fucking koala?”

“I could stay here all day dude you’re warm.”

Pico sighed, trying to hide how much he actually loved this. “Lilly, a little help.”

Lilly hooked her arms under Keith’s shoulders and wrenched him off of Pico. 

Keith kicked his legs a little bit but didn’t protest. Pico couldn’t help but notice he was blushing a little. 

She then let go of him and clapped her hands together. “Alright! Once Keith is fed we’ll be going out! I’m thinking the arcade again, there were so many games we didn’t get to try out!”

Keith was excited as all hell. “Do you mean the one with the DDR machine?!”

Lilly tilted her head. “What’s a DDR machine?”

Pico clarified, “dance dance revolution. It’s got like, arrows on the ground you gotta step on in time to the rhythm of a song. Hard as hell game.”

“That sounds cool!”

Keith chimed in. “Pico, here’s your rematch, you and me, DDR.”

“You won’t beat me at DDR,” Pico stated.

Keith folded his arms and grinned. “We’ll see about that.”

Lilly interrupted, “Keith, breakfast. We’re not going anywhere until you eat.”

Keith set on to making himself some toast.

She turned to Pico and asked, “how are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks.”  _ I don’t want you to die. I won’t let either of you die.  _

Lilly smiled, she was relieved. “Good!”

Soon, Keith had scarfed down his toast and the three of them walked down to the arcade, it was just opening by the time they got there, so it was only the three of them. Keith immediately raced to the DDR machine.

Lilly called out, walking to the counter, “hang on! I need to buy credits!”

Pico stepped up onto the machine, waiting for Lilly. 

Keith grinned at him. “Imma kick your ass so hard!”

“Nah, you won’t. If you could dance well you woulda made it part of your act.”

Keith placed a hand over his heart. “Shit dude you wound me.”

Lilly swiped her card and the pair were ready to go. She clapped along to the beat of the song as they began to dance. Three songs later, and the score was 0-3. Pico had indeed whooped Keith at this game. 

Keith was out of breath, stepping down from the machine in shame.

Pico cheered, “oh yeah! Go Pico! Yeah yeah go Pico!” while moonwalking across the arrows. 

Keith called out, “show off!”

Pico jumped down and grinned, standing tall. “You’re just salty you lost at something for once.”

Lilly asked, “are there any games all three of us can play?”

Pico pointed to the racing games, they headed over, choosing a cool immersive fighter jet one. 

Within about a minute Lilly was ahead of the boys, and had shot down more enemy planes. She was laughing and cheering. Pico was just as lovestruck and distracted by her as Keith. Soon though, Keith appeared irritated about something. Lilly asked, “something wrong Keith?”

Keith explained, “yeah my phone’s been going nuts the whole time. I’ve been trying not to check it.”

Pico commented, “you should probably check it.”

Keith got out his phone, unlocked it and gasped, “WOAH!!! My twitter’s blowing the fuck UP!”

Lilly leaned over his shoulder to look. “That’s either great or really _ really  _ bad. Do you know why?”

Keith’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah! Hey Lilly you know how when Pico took you shooting your mom came to see me?”

“Wait what?” said Pico. 

Lilly rolled her eyes. “So she challenged you too huh? Didn’t you say you lost that?”

Keith bobbed up and down on the spot. “Yeah I did but someone filmed the whole thing! It’s going viral!!!”

It was Pico’s turn to look over his shoulder, the post with their sing off/duet had over 100k likes. People who knew Keith’s twitter were dming him and liking his posts. 

Keith’s hands were shaking in excitement. “I got an idea!!! What if I set up a gofundme or whatever??? See if anyone’s willing to chip in and help me get out of debt?!”

Pico shrugged. “Why not? No harm I guess. Wait what the _ fuck _ .” He leaned in to see the video that was playing on Keith’s phone. He gawked at Lilly. “ _ That’s _ your mom! I recognize her! She’s a popstar!”

Lilly smiled. “She’s not all that special.”

Pico said to Keith, “definitely take advantage of this, if you pop off that’d be the best case scenario.”

Keith was ecstatic, he could barely form words. He just jumped up and down, pumping his fist in the air. 

Lilly made eye contact with Pico and laughed a little. 

Pico was smiling at the both of them, his heart was singing. But the smile soon faded when he remembered what he’d have to do to preserve their joy, their lives. They’d never understand. Soon his heart was heavy with grief. One way, or the other. He didn’t yet know what to choose. 

…

A few weeks prior, Keith walked into his and Lilly’s dorm with a concerned expression. 

Lilly stood up from her desk and immediately headed over to him. “What happened? You said you needed to stay with him, did something bad happen???”

Keith rubbed his eye and sat down on the countertop. “Yeah, we slept from like 3am til about midday, I cuddled him for a while too. I woulda come home but he told me something really fucking disturbing, and I didn’t just want to leave him after that.”

Lilly sat beside him. “If it’s private you don’t have to tell me.”

  
“I think it’s something you should have in mind too since you’re hanging out with the guy as well.” Keith reiterated to her what Pico told him about the shooting nine years ago. 

Lilly was mortified. “He… Was in a shooting??? And said he killed people???”   
  


“I-In self defense!!! I think.”

“I’m googling this.” Lilly took out her phone. She read through about five old news articles on one of the worst school shootings to ever take place. “There’s… No mention of a gun toting hero. Apparently the perpetrators shot themselves?”

Keith mumbled, “yeah I thought that was fishy too… But he’s got the fucking scars! I don’t think he lied about that.”

“I’m gonna google his name.” Lilly did just that. As she expected, nothing came up relating to profiles on sites, but something else did. Some public facebook posts. 

Keith leaned on her shoulder and looked with her. 

“Are… These his parents?” She was on what she guessed was his mother’s profile, they had the same last name and hair colour. The only public posts on the profile were commemorating the date of the shooting to pay respect to the victims. She read out, “‘our son was one of the victims, he was very lucky to survive. According to police he was found hiding in the janitor’s closet, half dead, with three bullet wounds to the stomach.’ Oh my god…” 

Keith took a deep breath. “He told me he found a machine gun in that closet…”

“I don’t think he ever left it Keith... “

Keith took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Shit man… What do we do?”

“Don’t mention it to him.”

“Why…? And just let him think he’s a murderer?”

“I think it’s his brain trying to cope with what happened. Do  _ not _ destroy that Keith. Not unless you have the best reason in the world. That should be between him and a therapist and survivors guilt, if that’s what this is, can be really ugly. For now I think all we can do is be there. He’s still the same awesome guy.”

Keith put his hat back on. “Ok… Sorry if i worried you babe.”

“It’s ok.” She kissed him on the cheek. 

He kissed her back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one's mentioned this to me, but if you're curious about my sources on schizophrenia... It's me, I'm the source. I've had psychotic symptoms (the main symptom of schizophrenia) on and off throughout my life. I have been delusional, I've hallucinated, it's terrifying. I am pending on a diagnosis and I am on antipsychotic medication. Congratulations if you've gotten this far and come to realize this is half a romance fic half a vent fic LOL.   
> Hence, I extend my hand. If you're a writer who wants a personal source on schizophrenia/schizophreniform disorder to incorporate a more accurate portrayal in your fic, please don't hesitate to ask me in the comments. Even shoot me a pm on tumblr and i'll get around to answering when i'm not busy. I can see people are really interested in getting this shit right in their fics involving Pico rather than shying away from the subject. I will remind people tho, psychosis is a very personalized thing, no two people with it are the same nor express symptoms the same way. So if you want to go "hey I think this hallucination fits with his story more" go right ahead.


	8. Sidewalk Surfing

Words swirled around the page, Pico picked up his workbook and tried shaking it, the letters didn’t even stutter. He placed a hand on his forehead, biting the inside of his cheek in frustration. It was like there was a timer on how much work he could do in a day. _How the hell am I supposed to do my exams?!_ He glanced around the room from his spot on the bed, which happened to be Lilly’s dorm. 

He felt his heavy eyes rest upon Keith, who was sitting sideways on the couch bed, leaning against the arm. The young man had his headphones in and a laptop on his lap, Pico could hear music softly playing through them, meaning the volume was up way too loud. He shook his head a little. The couch bed was folded up into a sofa; he figured it belonged to Lilly rather than the college considering his couch could not conveniently fold out. 

Pico heard a soft ‘bonk’ from the desk, he looked behind him to see Lilly, face down. 

She turned to look at him and gave a tired smile. “Science is _not_ my thing oh my god… I think I’m done.”

“Wow, this is a first, I’m usually the one to tap out.”

“I’ve been doing this every day for two weeks straight.”

Pico raised an eyebrow. “You think I haven’t been?”

She sat up straight and stretched. “You bludge way more than I do. I’m also willing to bet your notes don’t make sense anymore, do they?”

“...Shit.”  
  
“I’m right aren’t I?”

“I dunno, you take a look at it.” He handed his workbook to her.

Lilly’s eyes scanned over his math notes. She squinted and held the book closer to her face. “Aside from all the unrelated doodles, I can’t make sense of this.. I don’t know if it’s because your answers are wrong or just because it’s calculus.”

Pico yawned. “What time is it? That might be the explanation.”

Lilly checked her phone. “About 7pm.”

He scratched his head. “Fuck me, where did the time go?” It had been three hours since they started.

“Right??? Anyway how are you doing? You look tired.”

He made a swirling motion beside his temple. “Brain’s scrambled. I keep trying to focus and it’s like random elevator music keeps playing in my head."

“Isn’t that a mood…” He saw Lilly look to his right, smirk and point. Pico turned to see Keith very much vibing to what he was listening to. He had a hand up, waving it to the rhythm, whispering, “lets get too high~ reach a new high~ Take the shrooms and the pills at the same time~”

Lilly laughed and clarified, “I don’t know why he listens to stuff like that, he doesn’t even like weed, let alone harder stuff.”

Pico shrugged. “Weed calms me the fuck down… Let me guess, he gets anxiety from it?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah, panic attacks. I’ve never seen you smoke?”

He leaned over the head of the bed. “I have no fucking clue where to get any here and I’m pretty sure if my dorm stunk of grass I’d get kicked out.” 

“Have you tried anything else?”

“I barely left the house as a teen, the only thing I could get away with was weed,” Pico explained, “you?”

She thought back for a moment. “I’ve been around cocaine. You know, executive bigwigs love the stuff. Never tried it though. What about alcohol?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been drunk before. Just christmas with relatives though… My older cousins thought it’d be funny as fuck to give sixteen year old me whiskey.”

“Was it though?”

“I’m pretty sure there’s some dumb videos humiliating me online that they posted. My parents killed them for that. You?”

She smiled. “Parents got me drinks for my 18th birthday party, got wasted with some friends, _that_ was fun. The morning after? Not so fun.”

Pico pointed to Keith, who was still vibing. “Him?”

“He has a fake ID. We sneak drinks sometimes in here but that’s it, it’s not like we can go anywhere with them. _Please_ don’t tell anyone about that.”

Pico was surprised she even said that. “ _Dude_ I keep an uzi in my room, why the hell would I snitch???”

“Very fair point. Anyway-” her phone began to ring. Lilly took it out, her face turned sour when she saw who it was. She answered it saying, “hi Dad. No. No. Don’t text me anymore tonight, I won’t answer.” 

Pico heard an angry tone through the phone.  
  
“I don’t care if you send someone over, I don’t have to let them in! No!! I won’t put up with this anymore!!!”

Keith was now looking back at her, pulling one of his headphones away from his ear.

“I don’t care if you don’t like him. I have a right to make my own decisions regarding my life and my future, and I also don’t care if you’re pissed at mom for boosting his popularity!”

Pico and Keith made eye contact. Keith winced, Pico cringed.

Lilly stood up and stormed to the door. “I’m an adult! I should have the freedom to make my own choices!” She slammed it behind her, they could hear a muffled argument coming from outside.

Keith took his headphones off, seeming very guilty. He closed his laptop, put it on the ground and brought his knees to his chest.

Pico got up and sat in front of him. “Don’t feel bad. Everything that I’ve heard about that guy tells me he’s a massive dick.”

Keith stretched out his legs so that they were on Pico’s lap. “Still makes me feel guilty bro… She shouldn’t have to deal with that… Makes me wonder why she likes me so much.”

Pico shook his head. “Dude you’re the best. Don’t let him get you down.” He decided to try talking about something that would make Keith happy. “I mean, fuck, your career might just be about to take off. How’s that donation thing going?”

Keith’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah, people have chipped in two grand so far! That’s going straight to my debt. I’m gonna start recording my shows and uploading more original music online. I have some people who wanna collaborate with me too! No one too big but they have more followers than me so why not?”

Pico smiled and gently punched his shoulder. “Look at you, going places huh? We should collab sometime.”

Keith was elated hearing that. “YEAH??? FOR REAL???”

“Yeah, ‘course. I was thinking those three tracks I battled you to.”

Keith shuffled closer. “Fuck yeah!!! I’ll ask Lilly if we can use her recording studio.”

“Isn’t that at her parent’s house?”

Keith tilted his head. “Since when are they home?”

“Hmmmm true, we did manage to borrow her dad’s rifle and I ain’t heard nothing about that since.”

He shuffled forward more. “So when are we gonna do this?”

Pico put his arms over the back of the chair. “Dude you might as well be sitting on my lap.”

Keith did just that, wrapping his arms around Pico’s neck.

Pico avoided eye contact. “That… That wasn’t an invitation.” _You can do this anytime._

“Come oooooon it’s fine. So when do you wanna collab?”

“Uh…” Pico’s mind was clouded with thoughts that he was now a little _too_ comfortable with. “The day after exams are over?”

Keith leaned on him a little. “Sounds cool, wouldn’t you like a day to relax though?”

_I might be dead soon after._ “Nah I’m good.”

The door handle turned, Pico began to sweat as Lilly came back into the room with a pissed off look on her face. She then saw the two of them and started to chuckle. “Awww look at you two!”

“No comment,” Pico stated. He felt Keith cuddle up to him more.

Lilly then smirked, holding up her phone to take a picture.

Pico gave her both middle fingers as she snapped the pic.

She put the phone in her pocket and said, “ok come on Keith, it’s my turn.” She reached her hands under Keith’s shoulders and plucked him off of Pico’s lap. Keith then jumped up so she was cradling him, he wrapped his arms around her and they kissed.

Pico looked away.

Keith had a dreamy look on his face. “This kinda thing almost makes me glad im short.”

“Can’t relate,” commented Pico.

Keith pointed at him. “Yeah and you’ll never have a tall hottie hold you so get fucked.” 

Lilly laughed and put him down. “So, should we go somewhere?”

Pico asked, “isn’t it snowing outside?”

Lilly shrugged. “It snowed earlier this morning but it’s not actively snowing. There’s just some slush on the ground. I think it all melted.”

Keith was excited. “Oooo! What if we crack open our bottles of Dr Pepper and I’ll take you guys to a spot I love to chill at?”

Pico shrugged. “Why not. Where?”

“Near the beach, at the skatepark. I could teach you to skate! I’ve been giving Lilly lessons.”

Lilly rubbed the back of her neck and gave an awkward smile. “I’m still too scared to do a jump…”

Keith corrected her, “it’s called an ollie Lilly, also we could grab some fries and just hang out! Come on let's do it!” He picked up his bag, board and helmet.

Pico stood. “I’m in! Lets go.” 

It was a dark, winter night, the park was illuminated by a few street lamps shining a fluorescent yellow. There were a couple of teenagers there, but not too many considering the cold. Pico stood on the graffiti clad pavement, wearing Keith’s helmet and standing in front of his skateboard. 

Keith had one foot on the board and moved it back and forth. “Ok so you gotta decide which foot you’d like to go on the board.”

Pico had no clue how he was supposed to focus when the tags on the cement kept rippling. It was like it was covered in water, but it wasn’t? It confused him. It was probably the same paint that was used on the underside of Keith’s board. “Why does that matter?”

“It matters more than you think. It’s like deciding what hand you write with. I just told you how to push the board, give it a go!”

Pico awkwardly got on the board and gave it a push with his left foot. After a little while he found that he didn’t like it and switched to his right. He came back to Keith. “Uh, right foot on the ground.”

Keith gave him two thumbs up. “Ok, now you’re gonna do some turns, once you get that down I'll have you go down a short ramp. You cool with that?”

“Yeah, I mean, how hard can it be?”

Keith got on the board and showed him how to lean from side to side. “So this’ll make you turn pretty gradually, but if you want a swift turn-” he demonstrated a kick turn, “-you lean back just a little to do that, not too much or you’ll fall.”

Pico stepped back up onto the board, skated down the path a little and easily managed to lean from side to side. He then attempted to turn around with a kick turn, overshot the turn and tripped over himself. 

“Oh shit!” Keith ran up to him and helped him up, asking, “you ok man?”

Pico dusted himself off and glanced around for prying eyes. “I’m just glad no one’s around to see that.” He then turned to see Lilly, sitting with their fries, drinks and the boombox, filming. She waved at them.

The taller man grumbled a little and called back, “that stays private Lilly!”

Lilly flashed him a thumbs up. 

Keith patted him on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Stacking it is part of how you learn. Now I want you to go back and forth down the path doing turns until you get the hang of it ok?”

Pico nodded and set off doing just that. 

Keith wandered over to Lilly and took a handful of fries.

She commented, “he’s doing pretty well. Much better than I was.”

Keith laughed. “Yeah you shrieked when the board started moving the first time you tried!” He shoved a few fries in his mouth, turned to her and inquired, “so when are we gonna ask him?”

She immediately stopped filming. “Hmmmm… Not tonight, it’s a little soon… I was thinking we do something special for that. Take him out somewhere proper.”

“You have something in mind don’t you?”

“There’s a nice Italian place I like?”

“You know I don’t fit in at your fancy restaurants…”

“The other clients can put up with your blue hair…”

Keith looked a little nervous.

  
  
“Hey, it’ll be ok, even if he says no we’ll still be friends.”

“People think that shit’s weird though.”

“Pico doesn’t strike me as the type to judge much, he kinda goes with the flow you know?”

Keith shrugged and walked back over to him. “Hey, lookin’ good! Ready to go down the ramp?”

Pico stopped in front of him. “I think so.”

“Good! Lilly, get over here!” Lilly stood and walked over to them. “Show Pico how it’s done.”

Lilly seamlessly went down the ramp, stopped up the top of the other, and skated back to the first. 

Pico slumped a little. “That looks kinda advanced for me…”

Keith reassured him. “Oh she was just showing off, you just gotta go down the ramp and not fall!”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. Then I’ll get Lilly to try an ollie.” Keith got his phone out. “I wanna film this by the way.”

Pico hung his head back, sighed loudly and positioned the board at the edge of the ramp. He spent about two minutes at the top of the ramp, humming and harring about whether he could actually do it without injuring himself. 

Keith got sick of this and called out, “you’re not scared are you?!”

“Excuse me?!”

“Bein’ a real pussy right now Pico!”

Pico’s eyelid twitched, he immediately went down the ramp, he didn’t fall, turning on the opposite ramp and coming back. 

Keith started to clap. “Wooo!!! Nice!!!”

“Fuck you.” 

“I love you too. Lilly your turn!”

_I love you… He was just being sarcastic Pico don’t hang onto it too hard._

Lilly took the board and the helmet, Keith demonstrated the trick to her a few times. She tried to do it, tripped a number of times, before actually managing to ollie. She gasped and picked up the board, squealing in excitement she ran up to Keith and lifted him into a hug. They twirled before she put him down and kissed him. 

  
Pico was clapping with a smile on his face, until the two of them started making out in front of him. He turned his back to them awkwardly, god he wished that were him. _I need to learn to be content with third wheeling_ , he figured to himself. He flinched when he felt two arms wrap around his back. 

Lilly peered over his shoulder, Keith attempted to. “Wanna go grab starbucks?” asked Lilly, “i’m getting cold, I’d love a warm drink.”

“Oh hell yeah,” added Keith, “I want something sugary.”

This brought a genuine smile to his face. _I love you both so much._ “Yeah sure, wasn’t gonna sleep tonight anyway.”

...

Earlier that day, before Pico came over to study, Keith and Lilly lied on their bed together. 

Keith grinned a little. “Have I ever told you how cute you look in my shirt?”

Lilly pulled it down. “It’s like a goddamn crop top on me. You can see my stomach!”

“That’s a plus! Besides, gives me an easy way to do _this_ ~” He slowly ran his hand up her stomach under her shirt. 

She laughed, “you’re such a tease Keith…”

He cupped her cheek with his other hand. “Then how about I stop teasing…?” He leaned in and softly kissed her. 

Lilly wrapped her leg around him and kissed back. Soon she moved on top of him, deepening their kiss. For a few minutes, this was fun, perfect even. She tried to push thoughts of someone else out of her mind, but found that she couldn’t. Guilt welled in her stomach and she pulled away. 

Keith blinked a little, and seeing the look on her face, asked, “hey… Is everything ok?”

Lilly’s face scrunched up, her eyes grew wet. 

“Woah! Are you alright???” He sat up, she sat up on her knees, still on his lap, and buried her head in her hands. 

She started to cry into his shoulder. He held her tightly. “Hey hey hey… Shhhh… What’s going on Lilly…?”

“I feel like such a fucking asshole!”

“Wh- why???”

“I-I’m kissing you and I love doing it and I love you so so much but my stupid brain keeps putting thoughts of someone else in my head and I feel like a massive bitch!”

Keith’s eyes went wide, fear poured into his stomach. “I-... Shit babe… Am I doing something wrong…?”

“No! You’re amazing and lovely and fun and you make every day worth it so I don’t understand why my dumb brain is doing this to me! It’s a friend too! So I feel shitty when I _like_ spending time with them!”

Keith started to shake, not because he was scared to lose her, though he was feeling that. But because he could _relate_. “Fuck… Can I ask who…?”

“You’re gonna hate me if I tell you.”

“I’m not gonna hate you… Please?”

She hesitated for a little bit, but soon said, “fucking Pico…” Lilly stared at Keith, expecting him to scold her, to yell at her, to do anything else aside from blush madly. She tilted her head, sniffling. “K-Keith…?”

He was gripping his hair. “ _Fuuuuuuuuuuck!_ God dammit I was trying to ignore it for so fucking long but he’s so fucking cool and badass and hot as shit what the fuck! You too?!”

Lilly’s jaw dropped. “You… Feel the same way…?”

“Yes! I felt like a dick too! I was trying to deal with it myself so I wouldn’t hurt you!”

They stared at each other for a good five seconds, before Lilly’s sniffles turned to giggles, and Keith’s hands moved to her shoulders. They laughed together for about a minute before she slumped into him, holding him. 

Lilly asked, “... what the hell are we supposed to do about this…? It's not like I wanna stop hanging around him…”

“That’s not an option.”

“Mmmmhmmm... Any ideas…?”

Keith stared at the ceiling as he cuddled her. His eyes went wide. “Holy shit… The answer… It’s right there, I know how to fix this.”

“Hmmm…?”

“Three way.”

Lilly sat up and snapped. “Get your brain out of your dick Keith!”

He threw his hands up defensively. “No I mean genuinely! Not just a one time thing! A romantic thing! Me and you, we ask him out.”

The cogs turned in Lilly’s head for a while, she pinched her chin and considered it before sighing. “He’d never say yes…”

Keith sputtered. “Bull fucking shit he won’t! Have you seen the way he looks at you? Cuz I have! I remember how he acted when I cuddled him, don’t think I didn’t notice that shit!”

Lilly’s jaw dropped. “Oh… Damn you’re onto something… Every time you touch him his face goes redder than his hair.”

Keith asked, “so, it’s settled then? Me and you, we ask Pico on a date?”

“Aren’t we kinda already sorta dating in a weird way…? We all do stuff together a fair bit now…”

“Officially then!”

Lilly’s cheeks burned and she buried her head in her hands. “Yeah… God this feels so weird but I really wanna do it!”

Keith wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her closer. “I mean, I can’t knock it can I?” He smirked cheekily at her.

Lilly laughed a bit. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” She kissed him again.


End file.
